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NQRTHAMTTON.MA^ 



LECTURES TO CHILDREN; 



FAMILIARLY 



ILLUSTRATING IMPORTANT TRUTH. 



SECOND SERIES. 



By REV. JOHN TODD, D.D., 

AUTHOR OF THE STUDENT'S MANUAL, TRUTH MADE SDIPLE, ETC. 



SBftj) orfflfnal Ellustratfons. 




NORTHAMPTON : 
HOPKINS, BRIDGMAN, AND COMPANY. 

1858. 



' 1 s ,— r 






r 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by 

Hopkins, Bridgman, and Company, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



CAMBRIDGE: 

ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY METCALP AND COMPANY. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



" A little child shall lead them." 

The First Series of Lectures to Children was pub- 
lished in 1834. The sale from that time has been 
continuous, and the book to-day is as much a favorite 
with the children and Christian parents as it ever has 
been. In 1852 a new Illustrated Edition was issued, 
to which the Author appended the following Preface. 
This is reprinted here, to introduce the reader of the 
Second Series to the First, which is still in print, 
having now reached its tiventy-first thousand. 

The second volume is entirely new, and is illus- 
trated with original engravings by Billings. It has 
been pronounced, by distinguished persons to whom 
the manuscript was submitted, equal to the first vol- 
ume. This is sufficient commendation. 

Northampton, September 1, 1858. 



PREFACE TO THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION 



OF 



THE FIRST SERIES. 



This little work, after having passed through fifteen 
editions in this country, and we know not how many 
in England, after having been translated into French, 
German, Greek, and many more languages, printed in 
raised letters for the blind, and, last of all, having 
been adopted as a school-book for the liberated slaves 
at Sierra Leone, is now sent forth in a new dress, with 
the addition of new Lectures. A whole generation 
has passed from childhood into manhood since these 
Lectures were first printed ; and though it claims to 
be only a very humble instrument of usefulness, yet 
the author, from testimony which he has already re- 
ceived from many and various quarters, would rather 
want renown and fame among men, than to be with- 
out his hope that the mission of this little work has 
been one of good to the lambs of Christ's flock. 

Pittsfield, October 1, 1852. 



PREFACE. 



There are, perhaps, loftier walks than the paths 
in which the feet of childhood tread. But when 
we remember how earnestly Moses commanded his 
people to instruct their little ones; how beautifully 
David spake to and of them ; how wisely and fully 
Solomon taught them in his Proverbs ; how ten- 
derly Christ embraced them, and charged his minis- 
ters (in charging Peter) to feed his lambs ; how 
great the number now under the care of the Church 
of Christ for instruction ; and how great a propor- 
tion of all who are, at this day, converted to God, 
come from these lambs, — we can hardly overestimate 
the importance of this department of spiritual labor. 

Many years ago, I made the attempt to speak to 
children by the pen. The effort was far more success- 



Preface. 



ful than I had any right to hope. Whether the 
harp has since become so worn by time that its notes 
will be no longer recognized, will be determined by 
the issuing of this little volume. Should it, like 
some unpretending bird, light upon as many bright 
and sunny places, and with its notes cheer as many 
listening children, as the First Series has, I can hardly 
think of a higher earthly recompense. 

We read, in our blessed Bible, of a temple in which 
the very snuffers were of pure gold ; but more beau- 
tiful far is the heart of the child in which the Holy 
Ghost dwells as his temple. To this end, — I trust 
with something of the child's humility, — I send forth 
this humble volume, and commend it to the blessing 
of the Great Eedeemer. 



Pittsfield, August 25, 1858, 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE I. 

THE LOWLY CRADLE. 

Ye shall find the Babe, wrapped in swaddling-clothes, lying in 
a manger. — Luke ii. 12. 

Building a mill. Wicked island. The drowning man. Teaching the island- 
ers. Scholars. A great change. The new way. Christ foretold. The 
pomp of an ambassador. How he was expected. Curious notions. 
Night-watchers. The song of the angels. The lowly cradle. The first 
worship. The Babe talked about. Carried to the Temple. The perse- 
cuted Babe. How he might have come. First reason why he came 
thus. Lessons to his disciples. No golden cloth. Borrowed not from 
earth. Second reason, — the poor. Poor clothing, —homes. Third rea- 
son, — to show what disgraces men. 

LECTURE II. 

THE LOST CHILD. 

And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the 
child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem, and Joseph and 
his mother knew not of it. But they, supposing him to have 
been in the company, went a day's journey ; and they sought 



8 

Contents. 



him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. And when 
they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, 
seeking him. — Luke ii. 43-45. 

The top of the hill. Things to be seen. Old Hermon. The child's home. 
Travellers. Things worth seeing. Conversation. Singing songs. Close 
of the day. The mother's sorrow. Words of caution. A mother's love. 
How it lasts. The child sought for. Morning again. Strangeness. 
The city opened. The wandering mother. First lesson. The little 
ants. The desolate home. Troubles. Second lesson. Pondering of the 
heart. Who take care of children. Dying mother. Dying child. The 
dead child. Mary in tears. 



LECTURE III. 

THE CHILD FOUND. 

And it came to pass, that, after three days, they found him in 
the Temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing 
them and asking questions. And all that heard him to ere 
astonished at his understanding and answers. And when 
they saw him, they were amazed : and his mother said unto 
him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us ? ^Behold, thy 
father and I have sought thee sorrowing ! — Luke ii. 
4G-48. 

Teaching by the bud. Training of the horse. A great fact. The little 
girl and the Bible Society. Little Alice. Children walking. The phy- 
sician. Surgeon. Moses. Luther. Washington. Our story. The 
search. The council-chamber. The voice! The child found. Gen- 
tle reproof. God's great plan. Acorn. Bright day. Making a* man. 
How Christ came. Picture of Christ. Bad imitations. About his Fa- 



9 

Contents. 



ther's business. Learning subjection. Like Jesus. Sleeping boy and his 
mother. The sick child. How we came to have the story. Whom does 
God honor ? Lost children found. Heaven. The joy of angels. 



LECTUEE IV. 

GATHERED LILIES. 

My beloved is gone down into his garden, to gather 

lilies. — Song of Solomon vi. 2. 

The modest flower, — how used. Ancient gods. Christ's garden. The 
child's coffin. Its new home. The flower gathered. A beautiful picture. 
What are Christ's lilies. First method of gathering them. The polar 
bear. The mother's love. Home a school. The orphan. The family of 
the dead minister. Christ's school-house. Second method of gathering 
flowers. The missionary's memory. Sabbath-school results. Pastor. 
Lawyer. Teachers. Lake on the mountain. Third method of gather- 
ing lilies. The child and the wise man. The blind beggar. Child's faith. 
Child in the woods. Child's religion and faith. Voices of nature. The 
dumb oak. Fourth way of gathering lilies. The mourning lily. The 
transplanted lily. Christ's lilies. Garden of heaven. Lesson learned. 
Christ the glorious ! Christ's visits. Second lesson learned. Parents. 
Teachers. Children. 

LECTUEE V. 

THE LITTLE SHIP. 

And he spake to his disciples, that a small ship should wait 
on him. — Mark iii. 9. 

A curious family. Curious birds. The owner. A strange supposition. 
What is power? Life of Christ. The birds a text. How the birds live. 



10 

Contents. 



The lilies. Christ's servants. Peter and the fish. The fish is Christ's. 
The little ship. How the boat was made. How long in building it. 
Christ riding. The wild ass. A quiet servant. The young choir. A 
chair provided. A mountain a servant. Servants always ready. The 
sick wait for him. The river Jordan. Angels are servants. Two 
times of need. The garden of agony. The angel's aid. Specimens of 
heaven. Conversation of heaven. Spirits wait on Christ. A tomb 
waiting on him. A wonder ! Many servants. A great Saviour. Heaven 
waits on Christ. Harvesters. All things are servants. Servants for ever. 



The little child called. 



LECTURE VI. 

THE GEEAT KING. 

For I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts. — Mal. 

i. 14. 

A rock. Tree. What makes a great king ? First thing. Territory. 
Magnificence. God a great King. How large his kingdom ? What God 
governs. The song of all creation. Second mark of greatness. Frederick 
the Great. Earthly king weak. The breakfast table. How many to 
be fed ! Different creatures hungry. A tree and its leaves. One world ! 
Third mark of greatness. The bee and the squirrel. The echo of the 
lake. Echoes of conscience. The commandments echoed. Xerxes 4he 
king. No mistakes. The tree on the island. Fourth mark of great- 
ness. God's kingdom old. The old rocks. God's kingdom always new. 
First inference. Gold lost. The dying saint. Second inference. Fault- 
finding. David's troubles and song. Who can contend with him? A 
scene in the Alps. The mountain-slide. The ruin. Child and feather. 



11 

Contents. 



LECTURE VII. 

THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. 

And it came to pass, fyc. — Luke vii. 11-16. 

Poisonous valley. Looking into the valley. Young men's party. The 
dying man rescued. Remembrances. We dying. The morning light. 
Walled towns. Christ travelling. The funeral. The mother's thoughts. 
The stranger's voice. The dead with no coffin. The staff mended ! 
Rivers of ice. The Alpenstock. The awful fall in the chasm. Glaciers 
in the night. A night scene. The twinkling light. The lost friend. 
Further unfoldings. Ingratitude. The child restored. Master of the 
grave. The dead brought back. A hard question. Reason first, for 
this miracle. For after ages. Reason second, for this miracle. The 
buried babe. W T ho are comforted ? The funeral at sea. The sad 
crew of the ship. The burial. The ocean-grave. The dead to awake. 
The resurrection. Reason third, for this miracle. Spiritual teachings. 
Why Christ left the earth. The great design of Christ. The people's 
shout. The shout of all his family ! 



LECTURE VIII. 

THE FLOWERS. 

Consider the lilies of the field. — Matt. vi. 28. 

Christ in the streets. Street sermons. Out-of-door texts. God's crea- 
tions. Paintings of nature. Spring's doings. A dark picture. A gar- 
den hung up in the air. First thing to think of . "Here we are!" The 
flower's speech. The rose and the tulip. The second thing to think 
of. The third tiling to be thought of. Broken teapot. The prisoner and 



12 

Contents. 



the wall-flower. The city cellar. Flowers in the coffin. How to improve 
flowers. Kose-bud on the tomb. How we use flowers. Night-blooming 
Cereus. Teachings of flowers. A sad thought. A child's doings. The 
dying boy. Language of the rose. Stupidity of men. Beauty for all. 
Voices all around us. Creation's testimony. Memories of the old man. 
Old Homer. The three gardens. Bright thoughts. Grave of the young 
girl. Nothing good to be lost. Preaching of the flowers. 



LECTURE IX. 

THE ANGEL'S ERRAND. 

Are not Jive sparroivs sold for two farthings, and not one 
of them is forgotten before God? Ye are of more value 
than many sparrows. — Luke xii. 6, 7. 

How to make a great river. "Wide country and long river. American 
birds. English birds. Sparrow of the Bible. The dead sparrow. The 
dead babe. God cares for all. Value of a soul. Powers of the spar- 
row. Cannot think or plan. Storm among mountains. Description. 
Shadows. Bright visions. Child in the cradle. What the child may 
become. Fifty years of life. Child and sparrow compared. Sir John 
Franklin. What a man may become. What is it to do great things ? 
Many miracles daily. Two strangers meeting. Society of heaven. The 
children present. What they will be. Christ's care. All are remem- 
bered. Little fruit-tree. What to live hereafter. Angels on the star. 
Their dialogue. The angel's errand. What he did on earth. Watching 
the child. What the sower has done. End of earth. The future of the 
good man. 



13 

Contents. 



LECTURE X. 

GOD REJOICING. 

The Lord shall rejoice in his tvorks. — Ps. civ. 31. 

Much in little. Child's arithmetic. New watch. The flower. Sea-shells. 
Why so beautiful? Flower of the mountain. Mottled fish. Mountain 
eagle. The horse of the prairie. God's great works. The river of 
Egypt. Bruce, the traveller. The head of the Nile. Perfected works, 

— rainbow, — early morning, — ocean, — forest-trees. The cradle, — child, 

— the man, — old man, — glorified man. The mechanic and his works. 
Christ's work. The "Morning Star." Her mission. Morning stars in 
heaven. Works over which Christ will rejoice. The mother's joy, — 
the pastor's, — the missionary's. God's joy for ever. 



LECTURE XI. 

THE OLDEST EIDDLE. 

Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came 
forth sweetness. — Judges xiy. 14. 

What a riddle is. Ancient riddles. Parables. iEsop's fables. Children's 
poems. Men of the Bible. Samson, — the man who was a whole army. 
His wedding. The young lion. The lion a beehive. A wonder. Doc- 
trine. The babe. Parents' joy. The child's will. The lame one. 
The little cripple. God's lesson. The child's will again. The temper 
altered. Text illustrated. Deaf and dumb child. Her mission. Sor- 
rows on the sea. Causes of distress. The mountain stage. Young 
officer. Maps of the ocean. The great results. Cowper. Beautiful 
eulogy on the pulpit. Hymns. John Milton. His lament over his blind- 
ness. Text illustrated. The greatest calamity ever known. Effects of 
sin. Results of it. What it teaches. The heaven of the redeemed. 
What Christ will do. 



14 

Contents. 



LECTURE XII. 

THE GREAT CHANGE. 

We shall all be changed. — 1 Cor. xv. 51. 

The boy's wish. Spring. Little girl's wish. Men desire changes. Changes 
to all. The old man. His sad experience. No sunshine. The bird's 
egg. The journey. Departure. The return. Two great changes. 
What death is. Little Emma Clapp. Conversation with her. Emma's 
experience. The baptism. Her sick-room. Her anxieties. Fearless. 
Perfected praises. Farewells. Her messages. Shutting of the lily. Great 
change in Emma. What became of her ? Contrasts. The coffin-dress. 
The last change. Christ's coming. The trumpet's voice. Graves opened. 
How the wicked forgotten in death. The most precious thing on earth. 
The blind eyes opened. No sickness. Surgeon's knife. The pond-lily. 
The diamond. Stephen's burial. The eggs of the silk-worm and the 
staves. The rag-picker. Eternal change. 



LECTURES TO CHILDREN. 



LECTURE I 

THE LOWLY CRADLE. 



Ye shall find the JBabe, ivrapped in swaddling-clothes , lying in 
a manger. — Luke ii. 12. 

Contents. — Building a mill. Wicked island. The drowning man. Teach- 
ing the islanders. Scholars. A great change. The new way. Christ 
foretold. The pomp of an ambassador. How he was expected. Curious 
notions. Xight-watchers. The song of the angels. The lowly cradle. 
The first worship. The Babe talked about. Carried to the Temple. The 
persecuted Babe. How he might have come. First reason why he came 
thus. Lessons to his disciples. No golden cloth. Borrowed not from 
earth. Second reason, — the poor. Poor clothing, — homes. Third rea- 
son, — to show what disgraces men. 

Children, you know that if you were to try 
to make a mill, or a carriage, you would go to 
work very differently from what a man would ; 
and you know, too, that while the man might 
finish his mill or carriage, you could not finish 

2 



16 THE LOWLY CRADLE. [Lect. I. 

The wicked island. 

yours. The man would go to work very differ- 
ently from the child, because he is older and 
wiser. So when God does anything, he does not 
do it as men do. He is wiser. 

Suppose there was a large island far off in 
the ocean, full of people; and suppose these 
people had all become thieves, so as to rob ships, 
and kill all in the ships, and so wicked that 
they were liars, and drunkards, and were just as 
wicked as they could well be ! Now how would 
men deal with them ? Why, they would send 
great war-ships with cannon and powder and 
great balls, and guns and swords to fight them. 
The great ships might shoot down their houses 
and cities and kill a great many people; and 
they might scare them and make them promise 
to do better, — but this would not make the 
wicked people feel any better ; they would still 
want to be thieves and to rob ships, and would 
do it, if they only dared to. 



Lect. L] the lowly cradle. 17 

The drowning man. Teaching the islanders. 

Suppose, now, that some day, just at night, 
these people on the island should find a man 
floated on their shores, almost drowned, — for in 
trying to get to them, his little boat had struck 
upon a rock and broke in pieces. They pick up 
the poor man, and find that he has no watch, no 
jewels, and no money which they can steal. 
He tells them that he hears that they are wick- 
ed, and he has come to teach them and to tell 
them about God, and heaven and hell, and their 
duty. 

They laugh at him, scorn him, refuse to give 
him food or a bed, — sometimes they stone him, 
— sometimes tell lies about him ; but the stran- 
ger never gets out of temper. He bears it all 
meekly, and watches with the sick, makes 
crutches for the lame, leads the blind, and takes 
the very poorest children and teaches them in 
his school. When not in school, he is going 
about doing good, carrying medicines to the 



18 THE LOWLY CRADLE. [Lect. I. 

Scholars. A great change. 

sick, comforting the sorrowful, and speaking- 
words of kindness to all. By and by some of 
his scholars catch his spirit and do just so ; and 
they go and open new schools, and teach the 
same good teaching. 

After a while, some of the islanders get very 
much out of patience to see these good things 
done, and so they get together and kill the 
stranger who had tried to do them so much good. 
But after he is dead and gone, it is found that 
those whom he instructed have his same spirit, 
and thus his spirit lives, and more schools are 
opened, till the poor islanders are all taught, 
and all see how wrong it was to be thieves and 
murderers, and how wrong it was to be cruel, 
and so they all become better people. They 
learn to work and earn their living, and they are 
sorry and ashamed when they think how they 
used to live and act. 

Now this poor stranger had no cannon and no 



Lect. I.] the lowly cradle. 19 

The new way. Christ foretold. 

guns nor swords, and he killed none of the 
wicked men, and yet he did what the war-ship 
never could do: he made them feel sorry for their 
sins. He made them leave off being thieves, 
because they feared God, and not because they 
were afraid of being shot. Which of these two 
ways do these children think was the best % 

The people in old times knew, — for the 
Bible had told them so, — a long time before 
Christ came to this world, that he would come. 
Sometimes the Bible called him a " Star," some- 
times a " Fountain," a " Sun," a " King," a 
" Prince," and sometimes " a child," or " a son." 
They knew that, as all the prophets spoke of 
him, he must be greater than any other prophet. 
They knew he was to do some great work, — for 
his kingdom was to be an everlasting kingdom, 
and all kings and people were to bow down to 
him and serve him. And they thought that one 
who was thus foretold, and who was to do so 
great a work, must be a great character. 



20 THE LOWLY CRADLE. [Lect. I. 

The pomp of an ambassador. 

And how did they think he would come? 
Why, they supposed that he might have his 
choice how he would come, and that he would 
want to do as other men love to do. Men love 
pomp and notice. An ambassador who goes to 
another country has a great war-ship go on pur- 
pose to carry him. He has flags on the ship, and 
guns are fired, and it seems to be a great affair. 
We know that, if we build a bridge, we must 
have a great deal of timber and a great many 
men to hew and bore and put it together; if 
we make a house, we must have men to dig 
the cellar, masons and carpenters, painters and 
window-makers, and a multitude of trades, to 
do it. If we know that a man has got a great 
weight to lift or a great work to do, we ex- 
pect to see a very strong man. If we know 
that a man has done some great work, or 
is selected to do some great work, as Wash- 
ington was, we expect to see a very uncommon 



Lect. L] the lowly cradle. 21 

How Christ was expected. Curious notions. 

man. So the people thought that Christ would 
come in a very new way. Some, perhaps, 
thought he would come on the clouds of heaven, 
attended by angels, as he will come at the 
Judgment Day. Some, perhaps, thought that he 
would come with chariots and horses of fire, as 
Elijah went up to heaven. Some thought that 
he would come as a great king, with an army, 
and live in a palace, and have officers and gold 
and riches and fine clothes. Some thought he 
would come as a general, and make war, and 
conquer armies, and thus make all people serve 
him. They knew of no way by which to raise 
up his kingdom, except to fight and make people 
afraid of his sword. So they used to think and 
talk about him before he came to this world. 
How little were their plans like God's plans ! 

On the wild hills of Judaea there were some 
poor men watching over their flocks of sheep 
by night. They built little watch-fires, it may 



22 THE LOWLY CRADLE. [Lect. I. 

Night-watchers. The song of the angels. 

be, to warm themselves and to scare off the 
wolves. They were good men, and knew, most 
likely, that a Saviour was coming to this world. 
It may be they were talking about it and pray- 
ing about it together that very night, when 
suddenly they saw the heavens seem to open, 
and out of them flew a multitude of holy 
angels, singing " Glory to God in the highest, 
and on earth peace and good-will to men." 
The shepherds were afraid, and lay flat on the 
ground ; but the angels told them to fear not, for 
a Saviour was born, — Christ the Lord, — good 
tidings of great joy which should be to all 
people ! Ha ! the Saviour is born ! — a thing 
of great joy to all people ! "Well, he must be in 
some palace, — where they have officers and 
guards, and silver and gold in great plenty! 
But no ! they must go, — - not to Jerusalem, the 
great city, — but to little Bethlehem ; not to the 
palace of royalty, but to the stable ! And there 



Lect. L] the lowly ceadle. 23 

The lowly cradle. The first worship. 

is the loivly cradle ! a manger, for the greatest 
King and the most wonderful character that 
ever was born. There were no silk curtains, no 
marble floors, no beautiful pillars, no great offi- 
cers of state, no long train of servants, no treas- 
ures of gold, — there was only a manger with 
a little babe in it, and his mother bending over 
him ! The shepherds tell their story of having 
seen the angels ; they believe this is the Saviour 
of the world, and that in that loivly cradle is the 
" Son that should be given," " the Child that 
should be born," and they fall down and wor- 
ship him. How they gaze at the manger! at 
the child wrapt in swaddling-clothes ! — how they 
weep for joy, and then go back to their hill- 
side and rekindle their fires, and give thanks 
to God ! 

Did you ever think, children, how many 
things took place even while Christ was a babe, 
which would draw men to think about him? 



24 THE LOWLY CRADLE. [Lect. I. 

Christ talked about. Christ carried to the Temple. 

There was the story of the shepherds, which 
they would spread far and wide among the 
people in the country ; then the wise men came 
from the east, guided by a new star, and the 
star would be seen and talked about far and 
near. They came to Jerusalem, and went to the 
palace of King Herod to find the babe, and thus 
they made it known to all the rulers and to 
all the city. This made it known still wider. 
Then, when his parents brought the babe into 
the Temple, the wonderful speech made by old 
Simeon would be told all over the country. 
The good old man had waited and lived to see 
this babe, and he was now ready to die ! Next 
we have a king trying to kill the babe of the 
lowly cradle, and he sent soldiers to Bethlehem 
where the child was, and slew all the little ones 
under two years old, so as to be sure and kill 
the child Jesus ; and this would be known all 
over the land. Then Christ — the little child — 



Lect. L] the lowly cradle. 25 

The babe persecuted. How he might have come. 

was carried by night down into Egypt, and final- 
ly brought back again, and carried to Nazareth, 
a little place so small and so poor, they thought 
the king would not look for him there ! 

Thus the babe, the child that was born, 
though cradled in a manger, moved heaven and 
earth; — the angels to sing and shout for joy; 
the shepherds to hasten and worship him ; the 
wise men to follow the new star till it came and 
stood over where the young child was ; the king 
and all Jerusalem to be moved and troubled ; the 
children to be slain on his account; and even 
old age to feel gladdened and joyful ! Was there 
ever such a child ] was there ever such a cradle % 
He might have come the child of a king, and 
have been rocked in a golden cradle, had he seen 
fit. He might have had the nobles of an empire 
to welcome him ; but no ! he came and occupied 
the lowly cradle I And why did he do so ] I 
will tell you. 



26 THE LOWLY CRADLE. [Lect. I. 

Why he came thus. Lessons to his disciples. 

1, That ive might all look at his real character. 

Had Christ come as a king, or a general, or a 
rich man, men would have looked at him as they 
do at a beautifully bound book. It is not the 
reading, the real value of the book, which they 
notice, but the gilding and the ornaments. So 
when men have great titles, and great offices, 
and great wealth, we are apt to feel that these 
things are very desirable. Had Christ come as 
such a one, we should all have tried to be like 
him, and so his followers would all have tried to 
be kings, or generals, or great or rich men ; but 
now, he who is most like Christ, is a poor man, 
a humble man, and has no worldly glory. We 
do not have to look at Christ through a gold 
cloak, nor see the dazzle of epaulettes or swords ; 
we do not have to wait till he has put off the 
robes of state, before we see him. There is noth- 
ing between us and his beautiful character. We 
do not have to ask whether it is the pure water, 



Lect. L] the lowly cradle. 27 

Xo golden cloth. Borrowed not from earth. 

or the cup out of which we are drinking 
it, that makes it taste so good ! How little did 
he borrow of earth in order to make men 
love and admire him ! We do not know wheth- 
er he was tall or short, — the color of his 
hair, the dress that he wore, the expression 
of his face ; we do not know anything about 
him, except that he came here and was found 
in a manger, with no heart but that of Mary to 
thrill at his birth. He would be loved, — not 
for what he had of earth, not for the glory of a 
throne, the honors which he bestowed on others, 
— but loved for his own sake ; for what he teas, 
and is, and ever will be. He did not invite 
men to his service by any rewards which earth 
can bestow, but for the sake of something 
better. Christ wants to be loved for his own 
sake. 

2. He came by the way of the lowly cradle, to 
show the poor what they can be and do. 



28 THE LOWLY CRADLE. [Lect. I. 

Lessons to the poor. Feelings of the poor. 

The parents of Christ were very poor. The 
pictures all make Joseph to be walking beside 
Mary on an ass with the babe in her arms, as 
they fled to go down into Egypt ; but I am not 
sure that it was so. I do not know but that 
they walked, and carried the infant in their arms. 
They were poor, — and when they brought their 
little son into the Temple, they brought the poor 
man's offering, — a pair of doves; thus show- 
ing us that the poor man may bring his little 
child to God and dedicate it to him, — - and that 
he will be just as acceptable as the man who 
has uncounted gold. Sometimes poor people 
say they cannot go and worship God on the 
Sabbath, because they have no clothes ; and 
poor children sometimes say that they cannot go 
to the Sunday School, because they have not 
clothes good enough ! This is not the right 
feeling. This is not as Christ did. The clothes 
in which he was wrapped in the manger were, 



Lect. I.] THE LOWLY CRADLE. 29 

Poor clothing. A poor home. The third reason. 

perhaps, such old pieces of cloth as were left 
there; and when they brought him to the 
temple to dedicate him to God, he was not 
dressed in gay clothing. Nothing of this was 
needed to recommend him to God. And let 
me assure my little hearer, that, if he has fine 
clothes and a beautiful home, and nobody trying 
to kill him, he is better off than Christ was, 
but he has no reason to feel proud. If he is 
poor, and has poor clothing and lives in a poor 
home, let him remember that Christ did just so, 
— and yet his parents gave him to God, and 
from his very birth they held him as something 
consecrated to God. 

8. Christ came to us by the way of the loivly 
cradle, to show us that %ve need be ashamed of 
nothing but sin. 

Christ was a poor man's child ; and he was 
not ashamed of that. His father, Joseph, was 
a mechanic, and that was no disgrace. He was 



30 THE LOWLY CKADLE. [Lect. I. 

Lowliness is not disgraceful. What is disgraceful. 

born in a stable and cradled in a manger, and 
that was no disgrace. He was persecuted even 
in infancy, — driven away from home, had to 
flee out of his country, was hunted by the king 
and his soldiers, and that was no disgrace to 
him. There is no disgrace in poverty, or trou- 
ble, or in anything but sin. " He knew no sin." 
How differently do we sometimes feel ! That it 
is a disgrace to be poor ! — to have no home, 
— no friends ! It may be, if it was sin that 
made us poor, if it was sin that made us lose 
our friends ; we ought to feel ashamed of sin 
and crime ; but not of anything else. Those 
who will be clothed with shame and everlast- 
ing contempt are the wicked. Those of whom 
Christ will be ashamed are the wicked. Those 
who will be shut out from his presence and 
glory for ever are those who are wicked. Now, 
my little children, you may know whether you 
ought to feel ashamed; if you use bad, low, 



Lect. L] the lowly cradle. 31 

What disgraces children. 

wicked words ; if you are rude, unkind, cruel, 
and headstrong; if you are proud, vain, over- 
bearing ; if you are selfish, covetous, envious 
or jealous of others; if you are profane or 
vulgar in manners or behavior ; if you are 
unkind to your brothers or sisters, or diso- 
bedient to your parents, — then you have some- 
thing to be ashamed of! Sin, in every shape 
and degree, is shameful; and this is the only 
thing that is. Children, will you not learn a 
lesson from the lowly cradle ? 



3 



LECTURE II. 

THE LOST CHILD. 

And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the 
child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem, and Joseph and 
his mother knew not of it. But they, supposing him to have 
been in the company, went a day's journey ; and they sought 
him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. And when 
they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, 
seeking him. — Luke ii. 43-45. 

Contents. — The top of the hill. Things to be seen. i Old Hermon. The 
child's home. Travellers. Things worth seeing. Conversation. Singing 
songs. Close of the day. The mother's sorrow. Words of caution. A 
mother's love. How it lasts. The child sought for. Morning again. 
Strangeness. The city opened. The wandering mother. First lesson. 
The little ants. The desolate home. Troubles. Second lesson. Ponder- 
ing of the heart. Who take care of children. Dying mother. Dying 
child. The dead child. Mary in tears. 

Some sixty or seventy miles north of Jeru- 
salem is a long, beautiful hill. Before the 
hill is a small, but quiet and most charming 
valley. Let us go up on the top of that hill. 



Lect. II.] THE LOST CHILD. 33 

The top of the hill. Things to be seen. 

Now, children, let us look around us. On 
the side of the hill is a village, and a little 
one side of that, a fountain of water gushes 
out, and drops into a marble basin. To this 
fountain all the women of the village come 
to get water. Let us look off beyond the 
village. There, yonder, between the mountains, 
and beyond the little valley which lies just 
at the foot of the hill, on the left hand, is 
a great, beautiful plain, — the most beautiful in 
all the land. It used to be called the Plain 
of Esdraelon. That round-topped mountain at 
the left is Mount Tabor; and there, over the 
hills, you can just see the heads of Little Her- 
mon and Gilboa ! And that beautiful mountain, 
stretching along till it dips its feet in yonder 
distant waters, is Mount Carmel. Look now 
directly west, and those waters so brightly 
gleaming in the sun are the Mediterranean 
Sea. You can see them on both the right and 



34 THE LOST CHILD. [Lect. II. 

Hermon. The child's home. 

left of Mount Carmel. On the north is another 
beautiful plain ; and away on, on beyond, seems 
to be a sea of mountains, with one mountain 
rising up higher than all, with his head covered 
with ice. That is old Hermon ! "What a 
beautiful prospect from this hill ! Where are 
we? 

This hill is the hill of Nazareth, and that 
village on its west side is Nazareth ! Here 
once lived a little boy. I suppose he often 
drank at that running fountain. I suppose his 
feet often trod this hill. I suppose his eyes 
often gazed upon these hills and mountains and 
valleys. His name was Jesus ! 

His parents lived in that village, and they 
were poor, but humble and pious people. Every 
year they all went up to the great city Jeru- 
salem, where the Temple was, that they might 
worship God according as he had commanded. 
On the return of the feast of the Passover, — 



Lect. IL] the lost child. 35 

Travellers. Things worth seeing. 

so called, because, when the angel of God 
killed so many of the Egyptians, (Exodus xii. 
27,) he passed over the Israelites and did 
not kill one of them, — this family all went 
up to Jerusalem. When the feast was oyer, 
they, and all the villagers who had gone with 
them, set out to return home to Nazareth. 
They probably went on foot, — unless it was 
some who were too old or too feeble, and they 
would ride on asses. They had no horses and 
no carriages in those days. As the large com- 
pany wound along in the foot-path, among the 
hills where the vineyards were hanging their 
ripe fruits, where the flowers were breathing 
out their sweetness, where the fields were wav- 
ing with grain, where the beautiful oleander 
gleamed with its load of richest blossoms, and 
the rose of Sharon tempted the children to stop 
and pluck them, — where the dove sat on the 
boughs of the trees that hung over the path 



36 THE LOST CHILD. [Lect. II. 

Conversation. Singing songs. 

and poured out her low song, — O, how glad 
were the hearts of these people ! How they 
talked of the city of David where they had 
been, of the glorious Temple in which they 
had worshipped, of the High-Priest in his rich 
garments, of the priests in their robes of white, 
of the music which made the courts ring with 
joy, trumpet and cymbal and harp, of the good 
people whom they had seen, of the old friends 
whom they had met, of the loved ones who 
went up with them the last year, but are dead 
now ! How they spoke of the children whose 
silvery voices united in the songs of Zion, of 
the inquiries they had made about a Saviour 
who was expected in these years ! And then, 
some of them sang over again the songs they 
had heard in the Temple, old men and old 
women and maidens and children all uniting to 
sing as they went towards their home ! It is 
now almost night, and the red sun begins to 



Lect. II.] the lost child. 37 

Close of day. A fearful cry. 

go behind the hills, and to touch the mountain- 
tops with his light, and the western clouds 
look bright, as if covered with dust shaken 
from angels' wings. The company have all 
stopped under a cluster of tall palm-trees, 
where there is a spring of water, and are getting 
ready for their evening meal. Hark ! what 
cry is that! "A child lost!" "A child lost!" 
And there comes the mother, passing from 
neighbor to neighbor, and from group to group, 
inquiring most earnestly for her lost child ! 
She supposed he must be among some of her 
relatives ; but no ! they have not seen him ! 
How pale she looks ! They try to comfort her ! 
They want her to eat ! Eat ! she has no desire 
for food ! Her child is lost ! Has he been 
carried off by wandering robbers ] Has he 
fallen by the way, and been left sick and alone 
by the wayside ] Has he gone in an unknown 
path through mistake 1 Poor mother ! None 



38 THE LOST CHILD. [Lect. II. 

The mother's sorrow. "Words of caution. 

can tell thy sorrows ! None can know the 
thoughts of thy heart ! She must turn back ! 
She is already weary with the long day's walk, 
but as the moon rises over the hills, her shadow 
is seen as she hurries back, and every now 
and then stops and calls for her child. The 
hills echo back the sweet name of " Jesus ! " 
" Jesus ! " : — but that is all ! Sometimes she 
thinks she sees his form resting under a tree, — 
but it is only a dark shadow. Sometimes 
she listens and thinks she hears his voice, — 
but it is the distant call of the shepherd. 
All night long the mother keeps on her way, — 
distressed for her lost child ! 

Children, you sometimes, it may be, feel 
unkind towards your mother. It may be that 
you speak of her infirmities or faults to others, 
that you laugh at her weaknesses, or that you are 
unkind and disrespectful in your language to her ! 
O, let me say to you, that you have no friend, 



Lect. H.] THE LOST CHILD. 39 

A mother's love. How it lasts. 

and you never can have in this world, a friend 
like her ! Should you die while a child, you 
will never be forgotten by your mother. She 
will remember how you looked, the tones of 
your voice, and long after others have done 
mentioning your name, she will think of it, and 
in the silence and darkness of night she will 
think of her child, and weep that he is dead. 
And should you live to grow up, there never 
will be a day, if there is an hour, when she does 
not remember you, and wish she could do some- 
thing for you. If you are in sickness or in 
trouble, she will ever be ready to come to 
you and try to do for you. Others may for- 
get you, other hearts may grow cold towards 
you, others may blame you ; but she — your 
mother — will always take your part and try 
to defend you. Even should she live to be 
old and blind or feeble, she will have her heart 
warm towards her child. She will forget all 



40 THE LOST CHILD. [Lect. II. 

The child sought for. 

that you have said that wounded her feelings, 
all that you have done that was wrong, and till 
the grave closes over her, she will have a 
mother's heart towards you ! 

The time that healeth all 
May take the sting from pain ; 
But a joy fades out when childhood dies 
She will never know again ! 

God comfort thee, beloved ! 
No darker hour is given, 
Than that which yields your children up, 
E'en though it be to Heaven ! 

The child was lost ! And Mary, his mother, 
weary and ready to sink to the ground, kept on 
towards Jerusalem. "What was it to her that 
the soft moonlight lay on the hills, and shadows 
and light mingled in the valleys % What was it 
to her that the vine gave out its fragrant smell, 
and the blossoms of the fig-tree and the orange- 
tree filled all the air with their sweetness? 



Lect. II.] the lost child. 41 

Morning again. Strangeness. 

The song of the nightingale would have sound- 
ed like the wail of her lost child ! When the 
morning light was again spread over the hills, 
she had retraced her weary steps so far that 
she could again see the towers and pinnacles of 
the great Temple in Jerusalem. * The morning 
sun seemed to bless them, as if he threw a silver 
veil over them all. But how different things 
look when we are sad from what they do when 
we are happy ! How different does silver look 
in the coffin-plate from what it does in the 
shape of a cup ! When she saw those towers a 
few days since, her heart leaped for joy; for 
she was then going up to worship with her 
child. Now he was lost! How could it be? 
She had never known him to get into bad 
company ; she had never known him to do 
wrong, to play truant, or to do anything to 
pain his mother's heart. That made it the 
more strange! If he had been undutiful, or 



42 THE LOST CHILD. [Lect. II. 

City opened. The wandering mother. 

wicked, she might have thought he had run 
away. But he had always loved his poor home 
at Nazareth, and had never been undutiful! 
How strange that he should be lost ! 

When the gates of the city were opened, 
the mother rushes into the streets. She goes to 
the house where they had stopped during the 
Passover. They have not seen him ! She goes 
to the few acquaintances that she had in the 
city, but they have not seen him. She goes 
to the market, and then to the pools, and 
inquires for her lost son ; but nobody can 
tell her anything about him ! The watchmen 
meet her in the streets at night, and are moved 
at her sorrows ; the sick man in his chamber 
hears her sad calls, and lifts up his head and 
inquires who it is ! Through every street in 
the city for three days does the poor moth- 
er wander, seeking her lost child! Has he 
been stolen and carried off to some distant 



Lect. II.] THE LOST CHILD. 43 

What the first lesson. The little ants. 

land and sold, like Joseph of old'? Has he 
been murdered in the streets, and secretly buried 
out of sight 1 Is he in some dark corner, lying 
upon the bed of pain, vainly asking for his 
mother 1 Ah, Mary ! thou hast lost thy child, 
and thou art teaching these children several 
things ; such as, — 

1. That our troubles come upon us in ivays 
not expected. 

When in the bright morning Joseph and 
Mary set out to return to their home, they 
expected that the day would be hot, and the 
way would be long, and the fatigue would 
be great, but they did not expect that at night 
their child would be lost, and all wrapped in 
mystery and sorrow ! We are like the little 
ants that set out to run in their little paths, but 
if an acorn drops in that path, or a stick drops 
across it, they are amazed, and stop, and turn 
back, or work their way around it. I have 



44 THE LOST CHILD. [Lect. II. 

The desolate home. Troubles. 

known many a child setting the heart upon 
a ricle or a walk into the fields, when suddenly 
a storm, a shower, or the coming of friends 
spoiled all. I have sometimes seen a family 
of children so happy in their sweet home, 
with their swing, their wagons, their doves and 
chickens, their dolls and play-houses, that it 
seemed as if they must always be so happy, 
with their parents and with one another ! But 
in a few weeks I have passed that beautiful 
house, and it was all shut up, — the doors 
and the windows all closed ! The parents were 
in the grave, and the poor children scattered 
from one another, never to live together again ! 
Ah ! the briers that tear our skin, and the 
nails that we tread on and wound our feet, 
are not in the places that we looked for ! It 
seems as if we only knew when and how our 
troubles would come, that we could get ready to 
meet them. So we could. But our Heavenly 



Lect. II.] THE LOST CHILD. 45 



Second lesson. 



Father does not intend to let us know this.. 
It is a part of our trouble to have it come when 
and how we did not expect it. He does this to 
make us feel that w r e cannot guard ourselves, — 
cannot take care of ourselves. The little child 
takes hold of his father's hand to pass through 
a long piece of woods, — he does not know 
when and where he will meet with logs and 
stones to be climbed over, ditches and holes into 
which he may fall, and serpents which may 
bite him; but his father's hand holds him 
and guides him, and will not let the child 
receive hurt. Mary is sorrowing and seeking 
her lost child ! — and she is thus teaching these 
dear children before me, — 

2. That children need some one greater than 
parents to take care of them. 

Perhaps no mother ever loved her child more 
than Mary loved the child Jesus. She had 
great expectations concerning him. The angel 



46 THE LOST CHILD. [Lect. II. 



Ponderings of the heart. Who can take care of children. 

Gabriel gave him his name before he was born. 
So did Isaiah call him " Immanuel," — God with 
us. From the visit of the shepherds and the 
wise men, and the prophecy of old Simeon^ and 
the thanksgiving of the aged Anna, she hoped 
great things. But now her child of so many 
hopes was lost ! He might be sick, he might 
be starving, he might be dying, he might never 
be found again ! Who can take care of him ! 

And who can take care of little children? 
Their parents cannot keep them in health, — 
cannot restore them when sick, cannot keep 
them when death calls for them ! Who can ? 
They need some one who can keep them and 
guide them at home and abroad, on the land 
and on the water. And God is that greater 
Friend, — greater than father or mother, and 
greater than the greatest man that ever lived. 
The child may be lost, but God knows where 
he is. The child may be sick, but he can heal 



Lect. II.l THE LOST CHILD. 47 

Mothers dying. The dying child. 

him. The child may die and be taken away 
from the arms of his mother, and go into 
that world where she cannot follow him, — 
but he will take care of him ! How I love to 
feel that every child now in these seats is under 
the care of One, who can do all things, and who 
will never forget what is committed to his 
hands ! Sometimes I have been called to see 
the mother lie on the death-bed, and leave her 
dear little children behind her, without any 
mother to take care of her babes ; and I notice 
that she always commits them to our Heavenly 
Father, who is faithful to his promises. She 
must die, but she feels sure that God will 
live, and that he will take care of her little 
ones. And sometimes I have seen the mother 
hang over the little bed on which her dear 
child lay dying, or bending over the coffin 
in which its beautiful little body lay, — and I 
have seen that, amid all her tears, she could 

4 



48 THE LOST CHILD. [Lect. II. 

The dead child. Mary in tears. 

feel that her babe was safe. O, there is One 
who is so great that nothing can be lost from 
his sight, nothing so far off that he cannot 
reach it, nothing so lowly that he cannot raise 
it up. The little coffins in which we place the 
precious dust of little children will soon decay 
and be no more ; but the eye of God will keep 
it all safe. They may be out of our sight, but 
he will always see them. 

O Mary ! blessed above women ! thy feet 
are weary in walking the streets of Jerusalem 
seeking for the lost child, and thy tears fall fast 
and thick, and thy head throbs with pain, 
and thy heart aches with sorrow ! But cheer 
up, weeping one ! thy child is safe ! God will 
take care of him ! 



LECTURE III. 

THE CHILD FOUND. 

And it came to pass, that, after three days, they found him in 
the Temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing 
them and ashing questions. And all that heard him were 
astonished at his understanding and answers. And ivhen 
they saw him, they ivere amazed : and his mother said unto 
him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt tvith us ? Behold, thy 
father and I have sought thee sorrowing ! — Luke ii. 
46 - 48. 

Contents. — Teaching by the bud. Training of the horse. A great fact. 
The little girl and the Bible Society. Little Alice. Children walking. 
The physician. Surgeon. Moses. Luther. Washington. Our story. 
The search. The council-chamber. The voice ! The child found. 
Gentle reproof. God's great plan. Acorn. Bright day. Making a man. 
How Christ came. Picture of Christ. Bad imitations. About his Fa- 
ther's business. Learning subjection. Like Jesus. Sleeping boy and his 
mother. The sick child. How we came to have the story. Whom does 
God honor ? Lost children found. Heaven. The joy of angels. 

We have very few blessings which do not 
come to us through suffering. If the little bud 
that swells, and seems so unable to burst open 



52 THE CHILD FOUND. [Lect. III. 

Teaching by the bud. Great fact. 

its covering, could speak and feel, I doubt not 
it would tell us that we never look upon the 
bright face of a beautiful flower that is not 
the result of suffering. In proportion as the 
horse is well trained and gentle, he had to suffer 
in being broken in, and learning to be so gentle, 
and to have no will of his own. The white, 
beautiful teeth of a little child, that look so 
much like ivory, caused much pain before they 
grew up in that regular row. 

There was once a poor little girl who had no 
Bible, and so she had to walk miles every week 
to read a Bible and get her Sabbath-school 
lesson. Her little bare feet ached, and her 
body was weary, and she was one day found 
shedding tears over her lot, — in not having 
a Bible nearer ! Many a long, weary walk she 
took, through much suffering. At last a good 
minister of Jesus found her, and not only got 
her the book, but the story moved many good 



Lect. III.] THE CHILD FOUND. 53 

Little girl and the Bible Society. Little Alice. Children walking. 

men till they came together and formed the 
British and Foreign Bible Society, — the great- 
est Bible Society in the world ! And so that 
great Society came into being by the tears 
and sufferings of a little girl ! 

Some years ago a gentleman in Hartford had 
a beautiful little daughter. But O how the 
parents grieved when they found that she 
was deaf and dumb, and could never speak 
or hear! She was bright and lovely, and no 
child among them all nestled so near the father's 
heart as little Alice ! And so anxious was 
he for her, that he had no rest till the Deaf 
and Dumb Asylum was established, at which 
hundreds and hundreds of such unfortunate 
children have since been educated. So all 
this great good seemed to grow out of the 
sufferings of little Alice ! 

The child cannot learn to walk without many 
a fall. He cannot have his teeth without much 



54 THE CHILD FOUND. [Lect. III. 

The physician. Surgeon. Moses. Luther. 

pain in the gums; and hard suffering ! Our 
blessings come to us through suffering. The 
physician who is so wise and so skilful when 
we are sick, — knowing just what to do, — 
had to see many a sick one before he learned 
all this. The surgeon who is so skilful that 
he can cut off a broken limb, or cut out 
a terrible tumor, must go into the hospital 
many, many times before he can become so 
skilful. He must see many a limb cut off, 
and many an operation with the knife and the 
saw, before he can know how to do such things. 
He must grow to be a surgeon through much 
suffering. Somebody must suffer, or he would 
not have the skill. There could have been 
no such great and good man as Moses, had 
there not been great sufferings among the chil- 
dren of Israel in Egypt. 

There could have been no such man as Martin 
Luther, had there not been a dreadful state 
of things among the people. 



Lect. III.] THE CHILD FOUND. 55 

"Washington. Our story. The search. 

There could have been no such great and 
good man as Washington, had not the troubles 
of his country raised him up. He grew up 
in the midst of suffering. 

Just so the beautiful story of Christ's being 
lost and found when a little boy, which so 
many thousands and millions will read over 
with admiration, had to be connected with the 
sufferings of his mother. How many tears 
she shed ! how many sleepless hours she spent ! 
how little food she took ! how she wandered 
all over the city inquiring for her child ! 
What had become of him] Had he gone 
up on the walls of the city, and, leaning over, 
fallen off? Had he gone up to the pinnacle 
of the Temple and fallen off? Had any of 
the wild men of the desert caught him and 
carried him off, to sell him into slavery in Egypt, 
— as Joseph was sold? Should she find him 
dead ] Or would she never see his face again % 



56 THE CHILD FOUND. [Lect. III. 

The council-chamber. 

All, Mary ! it was told thee that a sword should 
be thrust through thee, and this is the point of 
the sword and its first prickings ! At night she 
dreams of him, and starts up from her sleep, 
thinking she hears his voice calling her name ! 
She listens to the watchman's cry, — and they 
shout, as they have done for three days back, 
" A child lost ! " "A child lost ! " 

Towards the close of the third day, when 
the multitude were hastening up to the Temple, 
at the hour of sacrifice, the anxious, pale, and 
care-worn mother is seen mingling with the 
crowd. Her eye pierces among them, and rests 
upon every child. But he is not among them ! 
At last, weary and sad, the mother leans against 
a pillar that separates between the court where 
the people stop, and the great council-chamber 
where the great teachers and learned men meet. 
The door stands ajar, and she hears their voices. 
Now she starts ! — for she hears a voice that 



Lect. III.] THE CHILD FOUND. 57 

The voice ! The child found. 

she knows ! Is it possible ! She rushes in ! 
The council are so much taken up, that they do 
not notice that a woman — a thing never per- 
mitted — is among them ! Now she stops sud- 
denly and stands still ! Is it because she is 
awed at the sight of that great room, with 
its huge pillars all round it, the great dome 
rising up so high over it, the splendid ceilings, 
the carved chairs and seats, the rich tapestry 
and curtains, the marble floor all laid out in 
different colors like a rich carpet? Is it be- 
cause she is afraid at the sound of her own 
footsteps upon the marble? How still she 
stands ! She hardly breathes ! and now she 
turns paler still ! Now the tears come rolling 
down her cheeks ! How T she trembles ! What 
ails the woman ! Ah ! she sees her child, — 
her lost one, — alive, — well! He is in the 
very middle of the room, surrounded by the 
great doctors and teachers ! His eye is calm. 



58 THE CHILD FOUND. [Lect. III. 

Gentle reproof. God's great plan. 

his voice is natural, — he is not thinking of 
himself. He is asking those learned teachers 
deep questions. They are all looking at him, 
astonished at his knowledge of divine things, — 
his knowledge of the Scriptures, and the plans 
and the ways of God. They feel that he can 
teach them. They wonder over the boy. Just 
then he catches the eye of his mother, and, 
partly in reproof and partly in amazement, 
she cries : " My son, why hast thou dealt thus 
with us? We have been in great distress, 
fearing thou wert lost. We have searched and 
mourned with deep sorrow ! ' : She says but 
little, and that in gentle tones, for she is awed 
by what she hears and sees. She receives no 
reproof from the great men into whose presence 
she has come, for they see that she is the 
anxious mother of that wonderful child ! 

It is God's way to bring out his plans by 
degrees. When he intends to make an oak. 



Lect. III.] THE CHILD FOUXD. 59 

Acorn. Bright day. flaking a man. 

he does not touch the ground and cause the 
great tree to tower up and spread out its wide 
branches in a moment. The little acorn must 
be first made. Perhaps a child's foot treads 
it into the ground. It lies there in the cold, 
dark ground a long time. Then it swells, and 
"bursts open, then sends up the little shoot; 
and so it grows from year to year, till it slowly, 
and after a long time, becomes the oak. 

When God intends to create a bright, beau- 
tiful day, he does not cause the sun to rush 
up instantly, leaping out of dark midnight 
into full day; but he opens the eye of day 
very slowly. First the faint glimmer, then 
the soft gray, then the yellow tints, then the 
light, like a thin mantle, falling over every- 
thing. 

So, when God is to make a great and good 
man, he does not let him leap up from the 
cradle into the strong man in a moment, but 



60 THE CHILD FOUND. [Lect. III. 

How Christ came. 

slowly he must pass along, — the infant, the 
child, the youth, the young man, and the 
mature man of strength. This is God's way 
in everything. 

Just so, in sending his own Son to redeem 
this world. He did not send him wrapped 
in a cloud, as when he gave the ten command- 
ments on Sinai; he did not send him in the 
bright form of an angel coming on the clouds 
as his chariot; no, nor even as a full-grown 
man. He sent him here as a child, — so that 
he might know how children feel, — because 
he was to be the Saviour of children. " He 
learned obedience,' 1 to teach us how to honor 
and obey our parents. He was revealed by 
degrees. The great council of the nation had 
the opportunity of knowing him in his very 
childhood twice; once when he was born, and 
the wise men came from the east and asked 
about him, and now, by meeting him in the 



Lect. III.] THE CHILD FOUND. 61 

Picture of Christ. 

Temple, and seeing and hearing him. He him- 
self teaches us that his kingdom — though it is 
to be an everlasting kingdom — is to grow up, 
like the mustard-plant, from a little seed. 

Suppose, now, a man could dig up from under 
the ruins of the old Temple at Jerusalem a true 
and exact picture of the boy Jesus as he sat 
in the midst of these doctors, hearing and 
asking them questions, and it could be proved 
to everybody that this was a true picture of the 
scene, and an exact portrait of him. How 
much money would men give for that picture ! 
It would sell for a kingdom ! And yet it 
would not be very valuable. It would be only 
a curiosity. It would not show us how Christ 
looked, on the morning of his death, nor how 
he looks now. The picture would not give us 
so good an idea of him as this beautiful story 
does. This shows him — his soul, his spirit — 
to us, just as we want to see it. We cannot 



62 THE CHILD FOUND. [Lect. IIL 

Bad imitations. About his Father's business. 

think of a more beautiful situation in which 
he could have been placed. If we had a pic- 
ture of Christ, — if God had so ordered it 
that we had an exact picture of Christ, — we 
might have worshipped it ; or his disciples 
might think that they were imitating him, and 
being like him, if they wore their hair as he 
did, or dressed as he did, or wore their beard as 
he did. But now we know we are not like 
him unless we feel like him, do like him, and 
think like him. 

He was about his Father's business ! And 
yet what was he doing ] He was going to the 
Temple and learning about God and his king- 
dom. He went to learn. He Avent to fit 
himself for doing good hereafter. And he has 
left us, not a picture of himself as he then 
looked, not the coat or the sandals (shoes) that 
he wore, not a lock of hair, but something 
more precious. He has left us his example, — 



Lect. III.] THE CHILD FOUND. 63 

Learning subjection. Like Jesus. 

his beautiful example when but twelve years 
old! 

Gently the mother took him by the hand and 
led him towards their humble home. She was 
filled with awe and wonder, and silently pon- 
dered these things in her heart. Meekly and 
quietly he walked by her side, — perhaps now 
and then dropping a word about the lofty things 
he had been talking about in the presence of 
the doctors. 

Will a child love .to go up to the house of 
God and listen to the teachings of his word, 
and hear about the great kingdom and glory of 
God \ Yes ; if he is like Jesus ! 

Will a child who knows more about some 
things than even his mother, be ready to obey 
her and honor and love her ? Yes ; if he is 
like Jesus ! 

Will a child who can converse with great and 
learned men, and even astonish them, be willing 



64 THE CHILD FOUND. [Lect. III. 

Sleeping boy and his mother. The sick child. 

to be subject to his mother, and be to her 
a kind and dutiful child ? Yes ; if he is like 
Jesus Christ, — our pattern, — he will ! 

When the day closed, and the gladdened but 
weary mother came to seek the pillow on which 
she had found no rest for the last three nights, 
do you doubt that she knelt down and gave 
God thanks for the recovery of her lost child ? 
And as she went into his room once more, 
to look again upon the face that was never 
flushed by anger, that was never clouded by 
impatience, that never frowned or scowled in 
moroseness, and saw him wrapped in the soft 
slumbers of innocence, did she not have her 
eyes fill with tears, and thank God again and 
again 1 The lost child was found and before 
her! 

And will not the mother who has been hang- 
ing over the couch of her sick child, and seen 
it droop like a flower, and fade like a rose, and 



Lect. III.] THE CHILD FOUND. 65 

How we came to have the story. 

come down near the grave, — so near that 
she felt that it was gone, and she must lose 
it, — O, if God gives her to find the lost child 
again, and to have it restored to her, will she 
not thank God again and again, and ponder 
these things in her heart? 

This story of the young prophet of Nazareth 
had never been written, if he had gone up 
to the Temple merely to see it, as boys often go 
to some show ; or if he had gone up to the 
Temple to show how much he knew and how 
learned he was ; or if he had gone that he 
might ask puzzling questions. But no ! he 
went up that he might be about his Father's 
business ! God looketh on the heart, and them 
that honor him he will honor. Those learned 
men thought that they were great men, and 
should be greatly missed when they died, and 
have rich and costly, funerals and splendid 
tombs, and have their names go down to pos- 

5 



66 THE CHILD FOUND. [Lect. III. 

Whom does God honor ? Lost children found. 

terity ! But who knows where they w 7 ere 
buried, or even what their names were? w r hile 
the child that stood before them, and who was 
about his Father's business, shall be known, 
honored, loved, and obeyed, — not only while 
the sun and the moon endure, but even for ever 
and ever ! 

O, how many a mother has thought her 
child, so cherished and so dear, was lost^ lost 
for ever, as it dropped from her arms, and 
an unseen messenger carried it away out of her 
sight ! How she has mourned as she turned 
back from the graveyard to her desolate home, 
to meet his form, to hear his voice, no more ! 
How she has felt that she had lost him, as 
she looked over his drawer and saw all his 
playthings just as he left them, — the books 
that he read, the knife that he used, the slate 
on which he drew figures ! How his form 
came back and lived in the chambers of her 



Lect. III.] THE CHILD FOUND. 67 

Heaven. The joy of angels. 

memory ! and how she dreamed about him 
in the night, and felt his warm breath upon her 
cheek, and then awoke and felt that he was 
lost ! Lost ! O no ! when she meets that child 
again, he may be — not in the Temple sitting 
among the doctors and asking them questions — 
but he may be in the midst of the shining 
angels in heaven, and thus her sorrow be turned 
into "joy unspeakable and full of glory." 

" The child is found ! " Thus the tidings ran 
through all the circle of kindred and friends at 
Nazareth, — and thus they all rejoiced with 
Joseph and Mary when they heard the story. 

Thus, too, when a sinful child returns to his 
Heavenly Father, and repents of sin, and be- 
comes a Christian, the tidings are known in 
heaven, and " I say unto you there is joy in 
heaven in the presence of the angels over one 
sinner that repenteth ! " Then the lost one 
is found ! Then the dead one returns to life ! 



68 THE CHILD FOUND. [Lect. III. 

The joy of angels. 

Then the sick one recovers ! Then, anxiety 
about him is all over. The lost child is found ! 
is the joy of heaven when one soul comes to 
Christ for salvation. Do you think there has 
ever been any such joy over you, my dear 
children? Do you think you shall ever be 
found, all safe and good in heaven, as the child 
Jesus was in the Temple at Jerusalem? May 
God grant it ! 



LECTURE IV. 

GATHERED LILIES. 

My beloved is gone down into his garden, to gather 

lilies. — Song of Solckmox vi. 2. 

Contents. — The modest flower, — how used. Ancient gods. Christ's gar- 
den. The child's coffin. Its new home. The flower gathered. A beauti- 
ful picture. What are Christ's lilies. First method of gathering them. 
The polar bear. The mother's love. Home a school. The orphan. The 
family of the' dead minister. Christ's school-house. Second method of 
gathering flowers. The missionary's memory. Sabbath-school results. 
Pastor. Lawyer. Teachers. Lake on the mountain. Third method of 
gathering lilies. The child and the wise man. The blind beggar. Child's 
faith. . Child in the woods. Child's religion and faith. Voices of nature. 
The dumb oak. Fourth way of gathering lilies. The mourning lily. 
The transplanted lily. Christ's lilies. Garden of heaven. Lesson learned. 
Christ the glorious ! Christ's visits. Second lesson learned. Parents. 
Teachers. Children. 

In our American gardens, in some shady, 
retired corner, you will find a modest, lowly 
flower, with large, deep-green leaves, and a 
profusion of blossoms of the purest white and 
of the sweetest perfume. It is the " Lily of the 



70 GATHEKED LILIES. [Lect. IV. 

The modest flower. How used. Ancient gods. 

valley." Our daughters place the flower in the 
hair of the young bride ; and many a little 
hand of the infant in his coffin have I seen 
clasped around this beautiful flower. The fair 
brow of the bride, and fairer brow of the little 
one sleeping in death, — like alabaster, brighter 
the nearer you bring it to the light, — is 
adorned by the presence of this lily. 

In ancient times, they felt that the care of 
the world and all the different things in it 
was too much for one God, and so they fool- 
ishly contrived to have many gods, and pre- 
tended that every mountain, and every river 
and fountain, every tree and flower, and even 
every stalk of grain, had a god or goddess to 
take care of it. And still, they knew that this 
god, though he had but one thing to do, could 
not take care of the mountain, so that the 
earthquake might not shake it down; or the 
river, so that it would not dry up, or over- 



Lect. IV.] GATHERED LILIES. 71 

Christ's garden. The child's coffin. 

flow its banks ; or the fountain, so that it would 
not cease to flow ; or the tree, so that the wind 
would not hurl it over ; or the flower, so that 
it would not wither ; or the stalk of wheat, so 
that it would not blast. 

Christ sometimes calls his Church a vine- 
yard, in which he raises the choicest fruit of the 
vine. Sometimes a garden, in which are planted 
trees and shrubs, spices, trees of frankincense, 
myrrh, aloes, cinnamon, pomegranates, lilies, and 
flowers. And among all these there is none 
more beautiful than the lilies. It is these that 
he gathers the most frequently. And when I 
stand over the little coffin containing the babe 
so fair, so like marble, so unlike anything earth- 
ly, with a beauty which death could not efface, 
— the lily with the dew still fresh on it, — 
no more to bloom here, but with the dust 
shaken from it and gently transplanted to the 
garden above in which to bloom for ever, — 



72 GATHEEED LILIES. [Lect. IV. 

Its new home. The flower gathered. 

I always recall the words of our text, and feel 
that Christ has come down into his garden to 
gather lilies ! 

We do not know what the little one would 
have been here. We do not know through 
what dangers or sorrows or pains it would have 
passed here, but we know it has gone to God to 
be educated, and will never remember any other 
home but heaven. It will not remember the 
few days of its wailings here, nor the sobs of its 
mother as she saw it dressed for the grave. 
The lily was gathered before the cold storms 
beat on it, or the burning sun had taken away 
its beauty. Death lifted it up so gently, that he 
left no marks of his hands upon it, except 
his seal which closed the ear, the eye, and stilled 
the beatings of the little heart* 

But it is not about transplanted flowers that 
I am wishing at this time to speak ; though if 
I were to try to describe something beautiful as 



Lkct. IV.] GATHEEED LILIES. 73 

What would be a beautiful picture. "What are Christ's lilies? 

a diamond, and sublime enough for a picture 
which an angel might paint, I should select 
some little child who very early began to seek 
after Jesus, who lisped his praises here, and in 
the sublimity of simple faith went over the 
river of death, without a fear or a terror ! 
We have seen such lilies gathered. I am think- 
ing this moment of a sweet child of this verv 
church, who stood at the grave of her mother 
and young sister, and with her little hand 
pointed out the spot between them, where, 
she begged her father, she might be buried ! 
What a sickness that child went through ! 
And what confidence in her Saviour, as she 
struggled on towards him, through suffering, 
and was finally gathered to him with a faith 
that a Moses might admire ! Such pictures 
never fade from the memory ! 

There is no part of his garden which Christ 
loves more to visit than the flowers, — the lilies. 



GATHERED LILIES. [Lect. IV. 



First method of gathering. The polar bear. 

He has taken great pains for their being taken 
care of. Let us see now what the great Re- 
deemer has done to gather in the lilies of his 
garden, — the children of his Church. 

1. He gathers them under the care and love of 
their parents. 

God plants the seeds of love in the heart of 
all creatures, so that, as soon as they have their 
young committed to them, they love them with 
a very strong love. The most savage beast will 
fight for her young, die for her young, and, 
if need be, will starve herself to give it food. 
Bleeding, wounded, dying, they will think only 
of their young. What child has not shed tears 
over that affecting story of the white, polar bear, 
which the sailors shot on the ice, after having 
shot her cubs, when she fell between them and 
died, licking their wounds ? The beautiful story 
is old, but so to the point that I feel that 
I must tell it. 



Lect. IV.] GATHERED LILIES. 75 

The polar bear. 

A ship of war, the Carcase, was sent to 
make discoveries towards the north pole. 
While frozen and locked in the ice, the man 
at the masthead gave notice, early one morning, 
that three white bears were directing their 
course towards the ship. They had no doubt 
been invited by the scent of the blubber of 
a sea-horse, killed by the crew a few days 
before, and which had been set on fire and was 
burning on the ice at the time of their ap- 
proach. 

They proved to be an old bear with her two 
cubs ; but the cubs were nearly as large as the 
dam. They ran eagerly to the fire, and snatched 
from the flames portions of the fish that re- 
mained unconsumed, and ate it as if they were 
very hungry. The crew threw upon the ice 
great lumps of flesh also, which they had still 
on hand. These the old bear fetched away 
singly, laid them before her cubs, and, dividing 



76 GATHERED LILIES. [Lect. IV. 

The polar bear. 

them, gave to each a share, reserving but a 
small portion for herself. 

As she was fetching away the last piece, the 
sailors levelled their muskets at the cubs, and 
shot them dead, and in her retreat they wound- 
ed the dam, but not mortally. It would have 
drawn tears of pity from any but the most 
unfeeling, to have seen the affectionate concern 
expressed by this beast in the last moments of 
her dying young. 

Though she was herself dreadfully wounded, 
she still retained in her mouth the piece of 
flesh, and, though weak with the loss of blood, 
carried it back to her cubs, tore it in pieces, and 
laid it before them ; and when she saw that they 
refused to eat, she laid her paws upon one, and 
then upon the other, and endeavored to raise 
them up, all the while moaning most piteously. 
When she found that she could not stir them, 
she went off, and, when she had got some 



Lect. IV.] GATHERED LILIES. 77 

* < 

The polar bear. The mother's love. 

distance, looked back and moaned; that not 
availing to entice them away, she returned, 
and, smelling around them, began to lick their 
wounds. 

She went off a second time, as before, and, 
having crawled a few paces, looked again behind 
her, and for some time stood moaning. But 
still her cubs not rising to follow her, she 
returned to them again, and with signs of inex- 
pressible fondness went round pawing them, 
still moaning. Finding at last that they were 
cold and lifeless, she raised her head towards 
the ship, and uttered a growl of despair, which 
the crew returned with a volley of musket-balls. 
She fell between her cubs and died licking their 
wounds. 

Who does not know that, after the drunken 
husband has stripped his home of everything 
that he can sell with which to buy drink, 
the poor mother will gather her babes around 



78 GATHERED LILIES. [Lect. IV. 

Home a school. 

her, and, while the cold storm is raging out of 
doors, will give them the last mouthful of food 
she has, going without herself, and then, taking 
off the poor remnants of her shawl, will wrap 
them in it, and bend over them as they murmur 
for food in their slumbers, praying that she may 
not die because nobody else will take care of 
these helpless ones ? 

No child can ever know how many times 
his parents have risen in the night for him, 
watched over his cradle, trembled for his safety, 
or how many times the praying parent has 
commended him to the Infinite Redeemer. 
Who teaches the child to speak, to walk, to 
know its letters, to take care of himself? 
Who teaches him the name of God and the first 
words of prayer % Home is the garden ! There 
the earnest prayer goes up every day for the 
child. There he is trained. There he hears 
Christ spoken of, and spoken to, with reverence 



Lect. IV.] GATHERED LILIES. 79 

The orphan. The minister's family. 

and tenderness. There he hears God's word 
read every day. He cannot remember when 
these things were new to him. There he sees 
the world laid aside, and the Sabbath welcomed. 
There he hears of the mercy of Christ shown 
in the conversion of men, in the death of the 
righteous, and in the hopes of the living. The 
most sacred thing in the dwelling, is the family 
altar. 

Sometimes the little child has no home and 
no parents to train him thus. But God has 
made special promises to such, and he takes 
peculiar care of him. I once knew a good 
minister and his wife both carried to the grave 
nearly at the same time, leaving a family of 
children. I was amazed to see how quickly 
loving hearts were raised up, and kind homes 
opened for them. Among them was a sweet 
little boy about a year old. On my mentioning 
the case at an evening meeting, a gentleman and 



80 GATHERED LILIES. [Lect. IV. 

Christ's school-house. Second method of gathering flowers. 

his wife at once said they would adopt him and 
make him their own. But before they could 
get him, he was sent for to go up where his 
father and mother were, and the frail lily was 
gathered there ! It was affecting to see how 
the new parents, who wanted to adopt him, 
were disappointed, and how they grieved. And 
many an orphan on whose head the hand of 
a dying father or mother has been laid, has 
found other hearts to love him, other hands to 
feed him, and others to train him up in the way 
of the Lord. The family is the school-house of 
the Church of Jesus Christ. 

2. He gathers the lilies in the Sabbath school. 

There are but few men now who cannot look 
back to the time when they went to the Sabbath 
school. Perhaps the man is now sitting down 
alone in China, the opposite side of our great 
world, and is sending his thoughts all the way 
back to his country. He seems to see the home 



Lect. IV.] GATHERED LILIES. 81 

The missionary's memory. Sabbath-school results. 

where he used to live when a child, the old gate 
on which he swung, the deep well from which 
he used to drink, the kind friends who took 
care of him. And now he seems to hear the 
old church-bell ring, and to see the people 
gather for worship, and he seems to see the 
little boys and girls gather with him in the 
Sabbath school. He sees the very pew in 
which he sat, and now the face and the form of 
that good, faithful Teacher rises up before him ! 
He remembers how r kind and gentle he was, 
how patient and meek he was, and how he 
used to speak of Christ with tears. He remem- 
bers how his own heart was affected, and how 
there, in that school, he first felt that he was 
a sinner, and needed a Saviour, and there he 
first felt the love of Christ in his heart. He 
was gathered into the school, and then gathered 
into the school of Christ. There he learned to 
be a missionary of the cross. And he is such 

6 



82 GATHERED LILIES. LLect. IV. 

Missionary. Pastor. Lawyer. 

a missionary to China to-day. And were men 
to come together from the east and the west, 
the north « and the south, and tell when, and 
where, and how, they were brought to Christ, 
one would say, " I am a missionary of Christ, 
and was gathered to him in the Sabbath school." 
Another would say, " I am a pastor of a 
church of Jesus, and in the Sabbath school I 
was first led to him." Another would say, " I 
am a Christian lawyer, and I bless God for the 
Sabbath school." " So do I," says the Christian 
physician. " I was never taught to go to the 
Great Physician, till I went to the Sabbath 
school." " And there," says the Christian 
merchant, " I learned to buy the pearl of great 
price, and to be a commission merchant for 
Jesus Christ." 

There are thousands of children who have no 
parents, and God is their father. There are 
thousands more whose parents do not instruct 



Lect. IV.] GATHEEED LILIES. 88 

Lake on the mountains. Third method of gathering lilies. 

them in the family, and so he touches the hearts 
of the good, and puts into their heart a desire to 
do good, and thus they become teachers. The 
minister is told to feed the lambs of his flock, 
and there is no way that he can do it so well 
as to train up good teachers for the Sabbath 
school. It is like a great lake on the top of 
the mountain. The Bible is the lake. Minis- 
ters are the great pipes which draw out the 
water, and these teachers are the many pipes 
which carry it to every house. Or, to use the 
figure in our text, the church is the garden, and 
the children are the flowers — the lilies which 
grow in the garden, and the teachers are the 
gardeners, who go among them to keep out the 
w T eeds, to give each one water and air and sun- 
light, and thus make them beautiful for the 
owner of the garden, Jesus Christ. 

3. He gathers the lilies hy converting their souls. 

Some think the little child cannot be convert- 



84 GATHERED LILIES. [Lect. IV. 

The child and the wise man. The blind beggar. 

eel, because he is too young to understand re- 
ligion. They might just as well say he cannot 
live on food, because he cannot tell hoiv the 
grass that feeds the ox is turned into flesh, and 
then nourishes him. They might as well say 
he cannot be warmed with his clothes, because 
he cannot tell how the grass which the sheep 
eats is turned into wool, and how the wool 
is made into cloth. The greatest man that ever 
lived cannot tell how the grass is turned into 
flesh or into wool, and thus made to nourish or 
warm us. The little child can eat the food and 
live. The philosopher can do no more. He 
can put on his garments and be warm. The 
great and learned man can do no more. 

A poor blind beggar once cried out in the 
street, and asked Christ to have mercy on him. 
What did he want ? Lord, that my eyes might 
be opened. How could he tell how Christ could 
open his eyes ? And when he had them cured, 



Lect. IV.] GATHERED LILIES. 85 

The child's faith. Child in the woods. 

what could he say, when they asked him, " Hoiv 
opened he thine eyes 1 " " By what means he 
opened mine eyes, I know not ; but one thing I 
know, that whereas I was blind, I now see ! " 
Could the greatest man that ever lived say more ? 

Every child knows what it is to love his 
mother, but can he tell you anything more 
about it than he feels it 1 Could any man say 
more? 

Every child can take hold of his father's 
hand and go with him in the dark, and this is 
having faith in his father ; but he cannot tell 
you what faith is ! 

A little child once got lost in the woods, and 
night came on, and it grew dark, and they could 
not find him for a long time. At last he lay 
down under a log, cold and afraid, and cried as 
loud as he dared. At length he heard some one 
calling. He was afraid at first that it was a 
wild beast. Then he plainly heard his own 



86 GATHERED LILIES. [Lect. IV. 

Child's religion and faith. The voices of nature. 

name. Still he did not stir. But when the voice 
came nearer and he heard his own name called, 
he stopped crying and jumped up and went to- 
wards the voice. He could not see anything, 
but he heard his father's voice and ran to him ! 
Thus he could have faith, though he could not 
tell what faith was. The child Samuel could 
say, " Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth," 
though he could not know the voice of the 
Lord from the voice of Eli. 

So the little child can believe in Christ and 
love Christ, though he cannot know all the 
deep things in religion. He can live upon the 
sincere milk of the word, and grow thereby, and 
that is all that is necessary for his being gath- 
ered to Christ. 

The beautiful rose does not know how the 
dews of the night refresh it and revive it, but 
they do. The modest lily, that peeps up and 
catches a few of the bright sunbeams, does not 



Lect. IV.] GATHERED LILIES. 87 

The dumb oak. Fourth way of gathering lilies. 

know how they make it white and pure, but 
they do. The valley that lies at the foot of the 
mountain, does not know how the gentle rills 
that run down the sides of the mountain, 
bursting out from hundreds of little springs, 
make it bright and fertile, but they do. So 
the little one does not know how he believes 
on Christ, and hoiv he lives by faith, but he 
does. And the tall tree of the forest, and the 
giant oak on the hill, can no more tell how 
they are nourished by the rain and the sun- 
shine, than can the little violet that grows in 
the crack of a rock ; and the lofty tree in the 
garden and the frail lily are alike fed, they 
know not how. When the child has said that 
he feels love to Christ in his heart, could a 
Newton, with all his great mind, say any more ? 

4. He gathers the lilies into the garden of 
heaven. 

Suppose you should go into a beautiful gar- 



GATHEKED LILIES. [Lect. IV. 



The mourning lily. The transplanted lily. 

den, and, as you stooped down to admire a 
sweet lily, it should droop its leaves, and shut 
up its flowers, and say to you, " Sir, I am a 
mourner ! I had a beautiful child by my side 
which grew from my root. It opened its flow- 
ers and mingled its leaves with mine, and 
waved its head, and seemed daily to smile upon 
me. It seemed to me there was never a lily 
so white and pure and beautiful ! But one 
day there came a man with a spade, and he 
rudely dug up my child, and tore its roots 
from mine, and then crowded it into a small 
pot and carried it off. He said not a word to 
me. He gave not a word of explanation; but 
he silently carried away my child." What 
would you say to that mourning lily ^ 

Why, you would say, " Do not grieve. That 
man who seemed so rude, was the owner of 
the garden, and he put the young lily in the 
flower-pot, and has carried it into his own 






■J hg*- '-'& 



<. - ill $^..;^-;^ 




Lect. IV.] GATHERED LILIES. 89 

Christ's lilies. Garden of heaven. 

parlor, where, under his own eye, it will be 
sheltered from the storms and cold winds and 
snows of winter, and where it will bloom in 
its beautv continually. He came himself and 
gathered his lily, and gently removed it to the 
warm place where he himself lives ! " 

Do you not understand me. children I Does 
not Christ thus come to his garden and gather 
lilies, and remove them to his own beautiful 
home in the heavens ? Xo storms come there. 
Xo crying is heard there. Xo tears are shed 
there. It is called the Paradise, or o-arden of 
the Lord. Here, the garden is a beautiful place, 
but it was in a garden that Adam sinned, and 
it was in a garden that Jesus was exceeding 
sorrowful, even unto death, and it was in a 
o;arden that he found a tomb ! But in the 
paradise above, there shall be nothing of sin, 
of sorrow, or of death. The serpent shall not 
draw his trail over the flowers ; tears shall not 



90 GATHERED LILIES. [Lect. IV. 

Lesson learned. Christ the glorious ! 

fall among them, and death shall leave no foot- 
prints there. By this subject, as I hope, you 
are prepared to see, — 

1. One beautiful trait in our blessed Saviour's 
character. 

He can teach senators wisdom. Kings reign 
by his aid, and princes decree justice by his 
teaching. The wisest man that ever lived 
grows wiser, if Christ teaches him. The great- 
est man that ever lived is greater by sitting 
at Christ's feet. The poet sings more sweetly 
if the spirit of Jesus touches his harp. The 
eloquent man rises to a loftier place, if he bor- 
rows his fire from the altar of God. The pal- 
ace of the king is more beautiful for having 
Christ in it, and the hall of legislation is more 
honored if he presides in it. He walks among 
the stately buildings of the great city, and 
makes the air purer, and the rich people bet- 
ter; but he goes to the cottage, and sows by 



Lect. IV.] GATHEEED LILIES. 91 

Christ's visits. Second lesson learned. 

the side of the door a plant called Contentment, 
and it grows and covers the poor man's cot- 
tage, and makes all within happy. He comes 
to the bed of the sick, and leaves an angel 
there, whose name is Submission, and the feeble 
one weeps no more ! He comes to the little 
child, and becomes his companion, and that 
"little child may die an hundred years old." 
He comes into his garden, and there gathers 
the lilies which he places in his garden above 
for ever ! Just as well fitted to be the child's 
friend, as if he thought only of him and planned 
only for him ! 

2. We all see duties that fall upon us. 

Ministers must not neglect the lambs of the 
flock. They must think much of the children, 
and pray for them, and see that they are faith- 
fully instructed, because these are the lilies 
which Christ comes to gather. 

Parents must not grieve too much, or think 



92 GATHERED LILIES. [Lect. IV. 

Parents. Teachers. Children. 

the little ones are lost which Christ takes from 
their arms, for they are gathered lilies ! They 
must not fail to train up their families faith- 
fully and prayerfully, because from these he 
will yet gather his lilies. 

Sabbath-school teachers ! consider the lilies ! 
They are for you to water and nurture and 
cultivate. No fairer flowers grow in all the 
garden of God, — none that Christ thinks more 
of, — none whom he loves more ! I hear him 
say to you, " Suffer the little children to come 
unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is 
the kingdom of God." 

Children ! There is not one among you all 
of whom Christ does not think. The lily ! 
How easily soiled ! How worthless when 
ruined ! So does sin look horridly on a child ! 
You must not use profane words, nor do bad 
deeds, nor have wicked thoughts, for ye are 
Christ's lilies. 



LECTURE V. 

THE LITTLE SHIP. 

And he spake to his disciples, that a small ship should wait 
on him. — Mark iii. 9. 

Contents. — A curious family. Curious birds. The owner. A strange 
supposition. "What is power ? Life of Christ. The birds a text. How 
the birds live. The lilies. Christ's servants. Peter and the fish. The 
fish is Christ's. The little ship. How the boat was made. How long in 
building it. Christ riding. The wild ass. A quiet servant. The young 
choir. A chair provided. A mountain a servant. Servants always ready. 
The sick wait for him. The river Jordan. Angels are servants. Two 
times of need. The garden of agony. The angel's aid. Specimens of 
heaven. Conversation of heaven. Spirits wait on Christ. A tomb 
waiting on him. A wonder ! Many servants. A great Saviour. Heaven 
waits on Christ. Harvesters. All things are servants. Servants for ever. 
The little child called. 

My dear children, I once went into a gentle- 
man's grounds on which, he had all kinds of 
forest-trees that would grow in this climate, 
all kinds of shrubs and flowers, and all kinds 
of fruit-trees. And then he had a great yard 
in which were deer, and curious animals, pea- 



96 THE LITTLE SHIP. [Lect. V. 

A curious family. Curious birds. The owner. 

cocks and fowls, and all kinds of doves. Some 
of these lie kept because they had such strange 
voices and made such awful noises; some be- 
cause they were so beautiful in form or color ; 
some because they were so strange in shape. 
Some of the doves had curious tails, some 
curious feathers, and some seemed to have great, 
huge breasts, as if they had a small pillow 
under their feathers. Then he had many kinds 
of geese and ducks diving and tumbling in a 
little pond. Then he had horses, great ones and 
little ones, and many other animals and birds. 
Now you say, this must be a very rich man. 
And so I have no doubt he is. God has given 
him a great deal of money. Whether he ought 
to spend it in this way, when there are so many 
poor children who need homes and schools and 
books, is a question you may think of. But 
would you not love to have all these things for 
your own % So many playthings % 



Lect. V.] the little ship. 97 

A strange supposition. "What is power ? 

But suppose, now, that this rich man had the 
power to make these creatures all do just as he 
pleased; so that, when he wanted, the horses 
would come up to the door of themselves; 
and when he wanted, the hens would run and 
lay their eggs, and geese would scream, and the 
doves coo, and the birds sing, and the fish leap 
about, and the trees rustle their leaves, and the 
flowers open and smile on him, and the fruit- 
tree drop its ripe fruit just at the moment he 
wanted it ; and the duck would lead off just as 
many little ducklings as he wanted ; and the 
birds would fly at his command, and the deer 
leap before him, and the peacock spread his tail 
just when he wanted him to do it ! And all 
as if these creatures were his servants to wait 
on him, and to do just what and just when 
he wanted ! Would he not be a very great and 
a very rich man % Would he not have what we 
call a great deal of power ? 



98 THE LITTLE SHIP. [Lect. V. 

Life of Christ. The birds a text. 

In the four Gospels which have been written 
by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we have an 
account of the life of Jesus Christ. It was said 
of him, that all things should be put under his 
feet; that all things should be his servants. 
Now let us see how this was. 

At a certain time Christ wanted to teach his 
disciples not to be over-anxious about what they 
should eat, or what they should drink, or how 
they should be clothed. (Matthew vi. 25 - 34.) 
Just then he wanted some birds from which he 
could instruct them, and, behold ! the birds are 
there ! He points to a flock of birds feeding 
near by, — contented, happy, and free from care. 
" Behold the fowls of the air ; for they sow not, 
neither do they reap nor gather into barns, yet 
your Heavenly Father feedeth them ! Are ye 
not much better than they?" The storms 
would come, and the cold winds would blow, 
and the snow and ice would fall. They have 



Lect. v.] the little ship. 99 

How the birds live. The lilies. 

no wheat laid up in the storehouse. They have 
no warm home provided. What will they do % 
Ah ! the same great Power that brought them to 
the road-side just at the moment he wanted 
them to preach from, will take care of them ! 
They do not know how to plough or sow or 
reap. They have not mind enough nor strength 
enough to sow or reap ; but God will take care 
of them. He has already made the tree to 
grow in which they shall be sheltered. He 
knows just where every worm and every seed 
will be found when they are hungry. So when 
he wanted flowers to preach about, behold, the 
lilies stand in the field just by, and he points to 
them ! What a multitude ! How they hang, 
all painted and dotted and striped and beauti- 
ful! Are his friends afraid they will want for 
clothing % " Consider the lilies of the field, how 
they grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin, 
and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his 

7 



100 THE LITTLE SHIP. [Lect. V. 

Christ's servants. Peter and the fish. 

glory was not arrayed like one of these ! ' : 
What a lesson does he teach 1 But think how 
the lilies were there, standing silent and still, 
like servants, before their Master, just at the 
time and place that Christ wanted them. They 
were all his servants. 

At another time men came to Christ to collect 
taxes. He had no money. He had not been 
anxious about it. But now when wanted, 
where shall he get it ? He tells Peter, one of 
his friends, to go down to the lake and throw in 
his fish-hook, and the first fish that he catches 
shall have in his mouth just the piece of money 
which he wanted. How beautiful ! Who 
dropped that money into the lake 1 How long 
had it been lying on the bottom of the lake % 
What made the fish pick it up 1 And when the 
fish found that it was not food, why did he not 
spit it out % How came he to bite at Peter's 
hook, when he had that money in his mouth \ 



Lect. V.] THE LITTLE SHIP. 101 

The fish is Christ's. The little ship. 

Who can answer these questions'? But we 
know the fish was a servant of Christ, to wait 
on him, just as really as a man would be, whom 
he should tell to go and get the money out of a 
drawer. All the fish of the great sea belong to 
Christ, and there is not one of them which he 
does not feed, and not one that is not his servant 
to wait on him. 

At another time, when the great multitude 
of people were crowding around Christ, there 
was no place for him to stand and preach, and 
no place to which he could go to pray. So he 
spake to his disciples that a little ship should 
wait on him. Now this little boat waited on 
Christ to be his servant. But see how many 
things had to be done to get the servant ready ! 
The tree out of which it was made had to be 
planted and watched over many, many years, 
so that no worm should kill it at the roots, so 
that no wind should break it at the top, so that 



102 THE LITTLE SHIP. [Lect. V. 

How the boat made. How long in building it. Christ riding. 

no lightning should crush it into splinters. It 
had to grow into a great tree, and then it had to 
be made into boards, and a boat-builder had to 
be ready, and the iron for the nails had to be 
dug out of the earth and all made ready ; and 
the knees which made the boat hold together 
had to grow, and everything got ready to build 
her. And when all made, she must be there 
ready, and the disciples must be fishermen so as 
to know how to manage a boat; and when 
Christ spoke to them to have the little ship wait 
on him, they had to be ready and willing 
to obey him ! Thus you see it took a long 
time to get this servant ready to wait on Christ ; 
but when he was ready to use it, the little ship 
was all ready for him ! 

You remember the beautiful account of our 
Saviour's riding into Jerusalem, do you not? 
One of the Prophets had foretold, a long, long 
time before Christ was born, that he should be 



Lect. V.] the little ship. 103 

The wild ass. A quiet servant. 

so meek that he would ride upon an ass's colt. 
When the time came, he had no ass. He was 
too poor to own one. So he sent his disciples 
to borrow one. They found him tied where two 
roads came together. They took him, and the 
owner made no difficulty. He had no saddle, 
and never had anybody ever sat on his back 
before. He was a young, wild, unbroken crea- 
ture. But Christ wanted him, and he was ready. 
He wanted a saddle, and his disciples take off 
their garments and put them on the colt's back. 
And now a great multitude go before and 
behind, and they sing and shout very loud ; but 
the ass does not run or feel afraid ! They cut 
clown bushes and throw them all around the 
ass, but he does not feel afraid. He waits on 
Christ and is not " ashamed," nor is he " con- 
founded," nor does he " make haste." Thus he 
can make the w r ild ass obey him and wait 
on him to carry him, or he can make him speak 



104 THE LITTLE SHIP. [Lect. V. 

The young choir. A chair provided. 

and rebuke the madness of a prophet. You 
will remember, too, that, at this very time when 
the ass Avaited on him, there were others also to 
do it. The multitude shouted, " Blessed is he 
that cometh in the name of the Lord ! " and 
when he got to the Temple, there was a great 
company of little children. They were all there, 
and they were all able to sing, " Hosannah in 
the highest ! " Thus you see that the most 
stupid creature in the world — the ass — and the 
most beautiful thing in the world — the little 
child — can alike wait on Christ and be his 
servant. He has only to say the word, and 
these shall all wait on him ! 

Do these children remember how his disciples 
once came around Christ, and asked him about 
the Temple, and Jerusalem, and the end of the 
world ] He wanted a place to sit down in plain 
sight of the Temple and of the city, where he 
and they could see it all. "Where should he go I 



Lect. v.] the little ship. 105 

A mountain a servant. Servants alwaj's ready. 

There was no gentleman's country-seat, where he 
would be invited to go up into the piazza and 
view the scene ! There was no beautiful car- 
riage to take them round and show them all the 
city; and yet there was a place prepared. A 
little east of the city rose up the Mount of 
Olivet ; and there, under the spreading branches 
of the olive-tree, the Saviour sat down and 
looked down directly on the Temple and on the 
city. A thousand men could not have built so 
good a platform for him to sit on. No lofty 
building could have been raised so convenient. 
This mountain was the servant of Jesus Christ. 
It waited for him as really as the little ship ; 
and when of old he laid (see first chapter of the 
Epistle to the Colossians) the foundations of 
this mountain, he knew when and how he 
would sit down upon it and describe the ruin 
of Jerusalem and the end of the world. He 
always found just such servants to wait on him 



106 THE LITTLE SHIP. [Lect. V. 

The sick wait for him. The river Jordan. Angels are servants. 

as he needed. Did lie want to show that he 
was Lord of the Sabbath and could heal diseases, 
— even such as nobody else could cure % Why, 
there was the Pool of Bethesda, and there was 
the great multitude of sick folks, and there was 
the man who had been sick thirty-eight years. 
And these seemed all to be waiting for him to 
come and show his great power and mercy. 

He wanted to be baptized and " fulfil all 
righteousness," and all things wait for him. 
There is the river Jordan, and its waters are 
waiting for him. There is John the Baptist, 
wondering why Jesus should come to him ; and 
these all wait on him, like the little ship. 
There, too, was the Holy Spirit himself, coming 
down in the form of a dove and resting on him, 
and a voice from heaven saying, " This is my 
beloved Son ! " These all wait on Christ ! 
There were two places and two times when 
Christ needed help from the angels. One was 



Lect. v.] the little ship. 107 

Two times of need. The garden of agony. 

when he had been out in the desert among the 
wild beasts, fasting and getting his soul ready- 
to begin his work. It was before he preached 
hardly a single sermon. After being worn out 
with fasting forty days and forty nights, and 
tempted till he was very feeble, — probably too 
feeble to walk, — and when he had nothing to 
eat, — then the angels came to him and brought 
him food. They " ministered unto him." The 
other time and place was the night before his 
death. He knew that to-morrow he must die. 
So he went out into a garden, where were trees 
and shadows, and there knelt down in prayer. 
He wanted a retired place, and this garden was 
ready for him. He was in great agony of soul, 
and wrestled with God in prayer till bloody 
sweat rolled from his face and fell in great drops 
upon the ground. Then his strength was gone. 
Then he was fainting. His disciples were 
asleep, and there was none to hold up the 



108 THE LITTLE SHIP. [Lect. V. 

The angel's aid. Specimens of heaven. 

head of the Saviour, and so an angel came and 
" strengthened him." Perhaps he whispered 
some sweet texts out of the Bible in his ear. 
Perhaps he brought some message of comfort 
from the Eternal Father. Perhaps he told him 
that his prayer, so earnest and so tearful, had 
been answered. We know not whether he 
helped him by holding up his weary head, by 
giving him a cup of cold water, or by whisper- 
ing comfort to his soul. We only know that he 
needed the help of angels, and that they waited 
on him like the little ship, to do what he might 
wish or say. 

Once, when on earth, Christ wanted to show 
men a specimen of the people who live in 
heaven. So he took James and John and Peter 
and went with them up a very high mountain. 
And there, away from men, and with these 
witnesses, he himself put on the garments 
of heaven. How his face shone ! How his 



Lect. v.] the little ship. 109 

Conversation of heaven. Spirits wait on Christ. 

garments hung like melted silver upon him ! 
How light seemed to pour out and flash out 
from his whole person ! Then soft footsteps are 
heard, and two men, Moses and Elijah the 
Prophet, come to meet him. They also come 
in the robes of heaven ! How glad they are 
to meet him ! How honored above all in heav- 
en, in having this opportunity to meet him! 
They do not talk about banks or ships or fac- 
tories or stores or business or gains or money; 
they do not talk about places of honor ; — but 
they talk about his " death " which he was to 
die at Jerusalem! He wanted to talk with 
somebody about it ; for he could not talk with 
his disciples. They could not understand it. 
They could not believe he would — so good and 
so holy a man — be put to death by wicked 
men ! But Moses and Elijah understood it; and 
when he wanted to talk about it, they were 
there, all ready. He knew just where to find 



110 THE LITTLE SHIP. [Lect. V. 

A tomb waiting on him. A wonder ! 

them, and just when they would come. They 
were like the little ship that waited upon him. 

And when he came to die, he needed a tomb. 
He wanted to borrow one, — not as we want 
ours, till the resurrection day, — but for only 
three days. Where will they find one % They 
have taken down his body, and are in haste 
to put it somewhere. Just then a rich man 
recollects that he has just been hewing a new 
tomb out of a solid rock, and that it is in 
his garden near by. A new tomb, and in a 
solid rock ! No man had ever been buried in 
it. He had never needed it before; but now, 
at the very moment when needed, the tomb is 
all ready! It is done and waiting for him! 
The rock was created and kept and got ready 
for this very purpose ! Like the little ship, it 
waited upon him ! 

How strange it is ! Christ Avas so poor that 
he had not where to lay his head, and yet you 



Lect. V.] THE LITTLE SHIP. HI 

Many servants. A great Saviour. 

see how his servants were around him just when 
he needed them ! It was as if he spake that 
they should wait on him, and they did ! He 
had his servants in the air, in the sea, in the 
fields, by the wayside, in the river, in the moun- 
tains, in the solitary garden, in the great city, in 
the grave, and everywhere. They came around 
him, the lilies, the birds, the wild ass, the fish, 
the boat, the men, the angels, and even the 
Spirit of God, just when he wanted them. The 
waters would bear him up, so that he could walk 
on them, to go to his friends, and out of raging 
storm he could call the sweet calm, and it 
came ! 

It is a great thing to have a Saviour so great 
that he can feed us every day of our life, clothe 
us all our days, — who can teach us in our 
ignorance, be with us when we are sick, and get 
our coffin ready for us when we die ! But this 
is but a small part of what Christ can do 



112 THE LITTLE SHIP. [Lect. V. 

Heaven waits on Christ. Harvesters. All things are servants. 

for every little boy and every little girl in this 
house. He has angels that he can send, when 
you die, to carry your soul to him far up in the 
heaven of heavens. He has a place there, — a 
beautiful home there, for every one who loves 
him. The gates of heaven are his servants, 
and wait upon him, and open to let his friends 
come in when they come to die. He has the 
grave of every one prepared, where he puts the 
body to wait till he comes back to earth ; and he 
has an angel whose trumpet, at the resurrection, 
will wake up every sleeper in the grave, and 
many angels besides, who will go out as the 
farmer gathers in his harvest, and bring his own 
people all to heaven. These all wait on him 
like the little ship ! 

The great trees wait on him, and shelter his 
birds, and give shade to his flocks, and fruit 
to men, and timber for their houses, or timber 
for their ships, and fuel for their fires. The 



Lect. V.] THE LITTLE SHIP. 113 

Servants for ever. 

mighty rivers are his, and they run in the 
channels he has made for them, and they water 
all the lands where they flow. The rocks are 
all his, and he nses one to make him a tomb, 
or others to make him a church, or to stand 
as a wall to keep the fields where his harvests 
grow, or to stand over the grave and say a few 
words about the dead beneath. The silver and 
the gold are his, and he gives it and takes it 
away just as he pleases, uses it to print his 
word, to send out his ministers, or to teach the 
little child in the Sabbath school. The Sabbath 
is his servant, sent to speak in a soft, solemn 
voice, and call men to him. The Bible is his 
servant, — sent out to instruct all the world, 
and lead all men to Christ. All the angels in 
heaven and all the robes of white there, and all 
the crowns of life there, and all the harps of 
gold there, are his servants. They all wait on 
him. And so will the ages of eternity all pass 



114 THE LITTLE SHIP. [Lect. V. 

The little child called. 

before him, for he " holds the key of death and 
hell, and he openeth and no man shutteth, and 
shutteth and no man openeth." 

O children ! he speaks, that every little child 
should wait on him, and be his friend and 
servant. And if that little ship that waited 
on him was honored, how much more will 
that little boy or that little girl be honored, 
who obeys him and loves him ! Who of you 
will be thus honored, — to have him bless you 
now, and bless you for ever in heaven % 



LECTURE VI. 



THE GREAT KING. 



For I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts. — Mal. i. 14. 

Contents. — A rock. Tree. "What makes a great king ? First thing. 
Territory. Magnificence. God a great King. How large his kingdom ? 
What God governs. The song of all creation. Second mark of greatness. 
Frederick the Great. Earthly king weak. The breakfast table. How 
many to be fed ! Different creatures hungry. A tree and its leaves. One 
world ! Third mark of greatness. The bee and the squirrel. The echo 
of the lake. Echoes of conscience. The commandments echoed. Xerxes 
the king. No mistakes. The tree on the island. Fourth mark of great- 
ness. God's kingdom old. The old rocks. God's kingdom always new. 
First inference. Gold lost. The dying saint. Second inference. Fault- 
finding. David's troubles and song. Who can contend with Him ? A 
scene in the Alps. The mountain-slide. The ruin. Child and feather. 

Children, when we say we have stood on 
a rock, that is not saying whether the rock 
was large or small, ronnd or square, marble or 
something else. When we say that we have 
admired a tree, it is not telling whether the 
tree was great or small, high or low, straight 

8 



116 THE GREAT KING. [Lect. VI. 

A Tree. What makes a great king? 

or crooked, ash or maple. Human language 
is so poor, that one word cannot describe a 
thing, and so we use adjectives, and use two or 
more words. When we speak of a king, it is 
not saying whether he is old or young, wise 
or foolish, strong or weak, honored or despised. 
But when we speak of a great king, we mean 
a great deal. He need not be great in stature, 
or great in size. But to be a great king, — 

1. He must have a great kingdom. 

2. He must have great power. 

3. He must have great wisdom to manage 
his kingdom. 

4. It must be an old kingdom. 

Let us see now if God has all these, so that 
he may well say, "lama great King ] " 

1. Has God a great kingdom to reign over? 

Sometimes we read of a poor, ignorant Af- 
rican, who in his own country is called a king, 
though he has not a suit of clothes to wear, 



Lect. VI.] THE GREAT KING. 117 

First thing. Territory. 

a decent hovel to live in, or a meal of food fit 
to be eaten. 

Sometimes men have the title of king when 
their dominion is small and poor, — a mere 
handful of half-starved people. But to be a 
great king, the man must have a large territory. 
It must stretch over rivers and mountains, and 
contain forests of wood, mines of iron, rocks 
and marble, clay and sand ; it must have cities 
and villages, land for wheat and grain, and 
cattle and wool ; it must have harbors and 
lakes, canals and roads. A great kingdom, 
too, must have a great multitude of people, to 
cut down the forests, to dig out the ore and 
make it into iron, to cut the rocks and marble 
into stones shaped for building, to turn the 
clay into brick and the sand into glass, to till 
the land and make it yield food and clothing, 
to build the cities and factories and ships, and 
manage them all, to dig the canals, and carry 



118 THE GREAT KING. [Lect. VI. 

Magnificence. God a great King. 

things on them through the country. It must 
have men to sail the ships, to manage the 
navy, to make armies to watch and protect all 
these lives and all this property. A great king, 
too, has colonies where a part of his subjects 
may live and trade. He will also have a treas- 
ury which is never exhausted, and then, as 
the representative of all this multitude of peo- 
ple and of all this property, he will have a 
splendid palace, and a magnificent court, and 
will be the centre of all honors and offices, 
and power and glory. 

A great king reigns over one nation only. 
God reigns over all nations and languages and 
tongues. No matter whether they are white 
or black, on islands or continents, savage or 
civilized, — no matter what language they speak, 
whether they live in cities or in caves of the 
earth, whether on the land or on the water, 
he is King over all. Other kings have but a 



Lect. VI.] THE GREAT KING. 119 

How large his kingdom ? What God governs. 

small part of the earth for their kingdom, but 
God is over all, — all that live on the earth 
are his. So are the sun, and the moon, and 
the stars, and all the bright worlds that sparkle 
in the sky. If you could fly as fast as the 
light, and go from star to star, and from world to 
world, till you had travelled thousands of years, 
and if you should find all these worlds filled 
with people, multitudes and multitudes which 
no man could number, they would all belong 
to the great King ! Perhaps all the stars that 
the greatest telescope has ever yet revealed, 
are no more to what lie beyond them, than 
one leaf plucked from the unmeasured forest 
would be to all the rest, — no more than one 
grain of sand picked up on the sea-shore would 
be to all the rest. Angels there are; princi- 
palities and powers and dominions there are ; 
men and devils there are ; and God is over 
all, and governs all. But that is not all. The 



120 THE GREAT KING. [Lect. VI. 

The song of all creation. 

suns and the stars that move in the heavens, 
the oceans that swell and roar, the mountains 
that rise up high towards heaven, the rivers 
that flow, the brooks that murmur, the cattle 
that feed on the ground, the birds that move 
on the wing, the fish that move with the fin, 
and every wind that shakes the leaf, every atom 
that is anywhere found, — all are governed 
by him. He reigns over all, and therefore are 
all his works called on to praise him. What 
a shout would fill the universe if all the works 
and creatures should thus rise up and worship 
their king ! " Praise ye the Lord from the 
heavens ; praise him in the heights. Praise ye 
him, all his angels ; praise ye him, all his hosts. 
Praise ye him, sun and moon ; praise him, all 
ye stars of light. Praise him, ye heavens of 
heavens, and ye waters that are above the 
heavens. Praise the Lord from the earth, ye 
dragons and all deeps ; fire and hail ; snow 



Lect. VL] THE GREAT KING. 121 

The song of all creation. Second mark of greatness. 

and vapors ; stormy wind fulfilling his word ; 
mountains and all hills ; fruitful trees and all 
cedars ; beasts and all cattle ; creeping things 
and flying fowl; kings of the earth and all 
people; princes and all judges of the earth; 
both young men and maidens, old men and 
children. Let them praise the name of the 
Lord ; for his name alone is excellent ; his 
glory is above the earth and heaven ! " God 
not only has all these creatures and things 
under him, but he governs them; so that the 
stars move and shine, the ocean rolls, the winds 
blow, the seasons change, diseases and deaths 
come and go, and the storm that rages, and 
the worm that blights the tree or eats the root, 
and the insect that opens its wing, and the 
mote that gets into your eye, — everything is 
his servant. Is he not a great King] 

2. A great king must have great power. 

It is often so — (it was so when the great 



122 THE GEEAT KING. [Lect. VI. 

Frederick the Great. Earthly king weak. 

Persian king boasted of his one hundred and 
twenty-seven provinces, — it was so when old 
Rome boasted that she had one military road 
over four thousand miles long) — I say it is 
often so that, the larger a kingdom becomes, 
the weaker it is. The arms of the king are not 
long enough to reach it all. His eye cannot 
see it all. His power cannot control it all ; 
and so it falls in pieces by its own expansion. 
The span of the bridge must not be too long, or 
it falls by its own weight. A tree must not 
grow too tall, or it is crushed by its own weight. 
It is said that Frederick of Prussia used to 
read all his letters — about three bushels — 
daily, himself. But it wearied and worried 
him, and his one mind could not do what 
was best for all under his power. A king 
sometimes loses a battle for the w r ant of money, 
or because he has too few soldiers, or because 
his officers are not suitable. Sometimes a fam- 



Lect. VI.] THE GREAT KING. 123 

The breakfast table. 

ine comes and destroys his plans; sometimes 
the plague cuts off his army. Sometimes his 
agents are unfaithful or indolent. He has to 
depend upon others. He cannot create men, 
nor food, nor can he make the thunder and 
the lightning fall on his enemies. Not so with 
God. He well knows, that if food should be 
cut off for one fortnight, all that live would 
be dead, and every creature that moves would 
be dead, and the earth would be turned into 
one mighty graveyard. You awoke this morn- 
ing, and came to your breakfast table, spread 
with good, wholesome food. The wheat in your 
bread was created on the prairie of the West. 
The fish on your plate was created in a river 
in Greenland. The tea that you drank was 
reared at the foot of the hill in the interior 
of China. The salt came from the ocean's bed, 
evaporated at the West India Island by the sun. 
The butter was the grass of our hills turned 



124 THE GREAT KING. [Lect. VI. 

How many to be fed ! Different creatures hungry. 

into that delicious substance, and the sugar 
in your cup came from the cane that grew 
beyond the Mississippi. All this was provided 
and created by God for one meal, — for one 
person. But remember that one thousand mil- 
lions of hungry people awoke this morning, 
and had to be fed. If all these people could 
be made to sit down together, they would fill 
five tables, both sides, running round the earth 
at her widest place ! And these tables are to 
be spread with food two or three times every 
day, and from week to week, from year to year, 
and from age to age ! Then all the animals, 
and the fowls of heaven, and the fish of the 
sea, are thus to be daily fed; and God must 
take the clods of the earth and the clouds 
of heaven, and create it all, and have it within 
the reach of all. The old, worn-out man must 
have somebody provided to take care of him. 
So must the helpless babe. So must the young 



Lect. VL] THE GREAT KING. 125 

A tree and its leaves. 

bird, and so must the worm in the dark ground. 
The food must be created, and all must be 
guided to it. God does not give his creatures 
checks upon banks that may fail, or drafts 
upon men which may not be paid, nor call 
upon men, who may not want to hear; but 
he creates for all. He asks no aid, because 
he does not need any. Other kings may have 
pride and take on them airs ; but they cannot 
create one drop of water, hang one flower on its 
stem, make one kernel of wheat, nor one leaf 
that grows in the forest, seven millions of which 
have been counted hanging on a single tree ! 
But God is everywhere, creating his empire, 
upholding it, feeding it, clothing it, and pro- 
viding for it. And this kingdom all cries to 
him. He hears the young raven and under- 
stands his language. And so does he the scream 
of the eagle, the call of the sea-bird, the chirp 
of the squirrel, the mute language of the fish, 
and the hum of the insect. 



126 THE GREAT KING. [Lect. VI. 

One world ! Third mark of greatness. 

Then think that this world is but one of 
the smallest that hangs in the outskirts of his 
dominion, like a single little leaf that hangs 
over your garden fence, and that what he is do- 
ing here, he is doing in all worlds, in all places, 
so that all other kingdoms seem like the toys 
of the nursery, through all his vast dominions, 
and say, Is he not a great King ? " Surely" 
says the Psalmist, " God is a great God, and a 
great King, high above all the earth ! What 
power is like unto his poiver ? and who among 
the sons of the mighty can be likened unto the 
Lord ? " 

3. A king, to be great, must have great wisdom 
to manage his kingdom. 

When our cold winter sets in, we notice 
the wild geese coming from the north, and 
in a straight line, which they follow day and 
night, going to the far south for the winter. 
In the spring they wing their way back again. 



Lect. VI.] THE GREAT KING. 127 

The bee and the squirrel. 

They have no map of their travels, they find 
no guide-board on the way, they make no inqui- 
ries. Without compass or chart, they move on. 
It is God who guides them, by an instinct, 
as we call it, which is true, and never errs. 
So he governs all his creatures which have 
not reason. They are all guided by it to find 
their food, and to rear their young, and to 
protect their lives. He governs men, not by 
instinct, but by two higher gifts, — reason and 
conscience. The bee provides for the winter, 
she knows not why. The squirrel feels avari- 
cious, and lays up for the winter, though he 
knows not why. But men know that the winter 
will come, and so they lay up fuel and hay, and 
things which will be needed. They know they 
will be old and feeble hereafter, and so they lay 
up for that time. They are guided in all this 
by their reason. But there is another power 
with which God governs men, — far more won- 
derful. I mean the conscience. 



128 THE GREAT KING. [Lect. VI. 

The echo of the lake. 

Far up among our forests there are little 
lakes, each a few miles long, with here and 
there a wooded island in it, and a long line of 
sandy shore, while all around the lake, the high, 
wood-covered mountains rise up, as if set to 
guard the beautiful sheet of water. All around, 
the forests shoot up, and stand in silence. Just 
as the sun goes down, he brushes the tops of 
the trees and the heads of these mountains with 
his warm tints, and pours down from the reflect- 
ing sky a light so soft and mellow that the 
lake looks like molten gold. You shoot out in 
your little boat, and the silence is so deep, and 
the waters so still, that you are almost afraid to 
dip your paddle in the lake. It seems as if 
every mountain and tree was watching you, and 
the very fish leap up to see what you are doing. 
Then it is that you raise your voice, loud or 
low, and there comes back an echo, if possible 
more distinct than your words. Every tone and 



Lect. VI.] THE GREAT KING. 129 

Echoes of conscience. The commandments echoed. 

inflection is returned, and the very woods and 
mountains imitate your voice. You startle at 
the clear, loud echoes. So it is, — I have often 
thought while listening thus, — so it is with the 
human conscience ! God speaks and says, " Thou 
shalt not ! " and the conscience echoes it back. 
Everything that he commands or forbids finds 
an echo in the conscience. The voice from him 
is answered by the voice within us. The echo 
is clear and full, so that when he speaks, it is 
going against our conscience to disobey. The 
mountains can no more return me different 
words, as I sit in the little boat and speak, 
than the conscience can differ from what God 
commands. And is not this a mark of great 
wisdom? Saul, a young man of Tarsus, per- 
secuted the disciples of Christ, but it was like 
an ox kicking against a sharp goad, that hurt 
him the more; and thus God governs by con- 
science. The great king Xerxes once gathered 



130 THE GREAT KING. [Lect. VI. 

Xerxes the king. No mistakes. 

an army of a million of men, with which to 
conquer ; but he had not wisdom enough to 
carry the plan through, and so his army was 
shivered and destroyed. Bonaparte once gath- 
ered an army of four hundred thousand young 
men, and thought that, with all his skill and 
wisdom and experience, he could conquer Rus- 
sia ; but alas ! it was all a mistake, and of all 
that multitude who followed him, but a few ever 
returned. He had not wisdom enough to carry 
out the plan ! But God, the great king, never 
makes a mistake. He never turns back dis- 
appointed He never has to alter or mend 
his plans. The wisdom which the wisest man 
has, which all men have, and which all angels 
have, comes from him. If, to bring about 
his plans, he sometimes takes a path that seems 
strange to us, it is because his eye sees further 
than ours, and he walks in a path which w r e 
cannot trace. He who buries the seed in the 



Lect. VI.] THE GREAT KING. 131 

The tree on the island. Fourth mark of greatness. 

ground in order to create the harvest, who 
wraps the worm up in the leaf in order to keep 
it through the long, cold winter, who leads his 
own Son to the high throne of heaven through 
suffering and shame, who leads his disciples up 
to his Master through the dark grave, that the 
light of heaven may be more beautiful, — He is 
wise of heart ! On the leaf that hangs on the 
topmost bough of the tree that stands alone on 
the little island, with the wide ocean rolling 
around it, there creeps a little insect. It has 
no voice that you could hear. Its feet are too 
small for you to see. And God has that little 
creature as much under his safe care, as if it 
was the only living thing that He has to plan 
for in all his vast dominions ! 

4. A king, to he great, must rule an old king- 
dom. 

A great tree must be a great while in grow T - 
ing. A great building must be a great while 

9 



132 THE GREAT KING. [Lect. VI. 

God's kingdom old. 

in going up. So must a great ship. No king, 
however wise or skilful, could make a nation 
or create a kingdom. It takes many genera- 
tions of men, and ages of time, to do it. When 
a king comes to his throne, if he be called 
great, he must find all things prepared, — the 
palace, the treasury, the officers, the army, the 
roads and bridges made, the cities built, the 
factories in operation, the farms cultivated, and 
the multitude of people all there. The older 
the kingdom is, usually, it is the richer, and 
the stronger. Wars have not been able to 
ruin it, revolutions have not destroyed it, time 
hath not brought it to decay. 

Now the kingdom of God is older than all 
others. Before there were any foundations of 
the earth laid, before a single star was hung 
in the heavens, before a single sun was lighted 
up, the kingdom of God began. The morning 
stars sang before his throne, before a single 



Lect. VI.] THE GREAT KING. 133 

The old rocks. God's kingdom always new. 

thing lived or moved in this lower world. 
There are old walls and towers and temples, 
crumbling and in ruins, built by men ages 
ago, we know not by whom ; but the kingdom 
of God is older than these. There are rocks 
so old that they look as if they were made in 
eternity ; but they are not old compared with 
God. Taking out a thousand years from his 
reign, is like taking a single drop from the 
great ocean. And when the hills and the 
mountains shall crumble down, grain by grain, 
till they are level with the plain, and when 
the sea is worn out by its motion and dashing 
against the shore, and when the heavens have 
grown old like a curtain, and the sun and the 
moon and the stars have no more light to give, 
when every grave shall be dug, and every coffin 
made, and the universe all come to an end, 
then, the kingdom of God will be in its full 
strength, his armies of angels and saints all 



184 THE GREAT KING. [Lect. VI. 

First inference. Gold lost. 

before him, and the bright crown of his do- 
minion on his head for ever, — " the blessed and 
only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of 
lords, tvho only hath immortality, divelling in 
light which no man can approach unto, which no 
man hath seen or can see, to ivhom he honor 
and power everlasting." 

We see by the light of this subject, that, if 
God be a great king, then, — 

1. He will always take care of good people. 

It is for the sake of his own people that he 
made all things, and keeps all things alive ; for 
them he governs all things ; and they can never 
be cast down, so that he cannot lift them up; 
never be so feeble, that he cannot make them 
strong ; never so far off, that he cannot find them ; 
never so distressed, that he cannot relieve them. 
A piece of gold may be carried to the ends of 
the earth ; it may be lost in dirt of the street ; 
it may be brought up from the bottom of the 



Lect. VI.] THE GEE AT KING. 135 

The dying saint. 

sea; but it is gold wherever it may be. It has 
the stamp of the die on it. So the people of 
God have his image and superscription on them, 
and the great King will take care of them. 
It may be the babe laid in the ark of bulrushes 
on the banks of the river ; it may be the 
prophet seated in the chariot of fire; it may 
be Daniel among hungry lions in the den; it 
may be his children in the fiery furnace ; — but 
he will take care of them. And wdien the 
saint comes to die, when the face becomes dis- 
torted, and the cheeks sunken, and the chin 
dropped, and the eye glazed, and the shudder 
of death passing over the countenance, O then, 
he says, he will not forsake them ! " Precious 
in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his 
saints." "What a song they sing ! — " Though I 
walk through the valley and shadow of death, 
I will fear no evil. Thy rod and thy staff 
they shall comfort me." 



136 THE GREAT KING. [Lkct. VI 

Second inference. Fault-finding. 

If God be a great king, then we ought to 
expect, — 

2. That there will be much in his government 
that we cannot understand. 

Suppose the councillors of a nation were 
assembled, and trying to devise the wisest plans 
for the good of the kingdom ; should a boy 
stand without and throw stones at the house, 
because he could not understand their plans'? 
Should a new soldier refuse to do his duty, 
because he could not understand why his gen- 
eral did this or that \ Should the small insect, 
that hangs in the air on his wings, find fault 
with the man who is building a great ship, 
because he could not understand all about it? 
No. Nor do Ave want to say that, because the 
wheels of God's government are sometimes high 
and dreadful, and because he drives his chariot 
where we could not, therefore we may com- 
plain, because we cannot understand it all ! 



Lect. VL] THE GREAT KING. 137 

David's troubles and song. Who can contend with Him? 

His deep wisdom is moving where we cannot 
follow. His great power is going where we 
may not tread. The great plans of the great 
King are high above our thoughts, as the heav- 
ens are higher than the earth. It seems as if 
I could see David, as he went up the Mount 
of Olivet weeping ! His councillor turned 
against him, his own son a traitor, his people 
turned away from him, the city in danger of 
being burned, his own life every moment in 
danger, Shimei cursing him, and everything 
looking dark and fearful ! Hear him put con- 
fidence in the great King ! " The floods have 
lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up 
their voice ! the floods lift up their waves ! but 
the Lord on high is mightier than the noise of 
many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the 
sea: the Lord sitteth upon the flood, yea, the 
Lord sitteth king for ever ! " And how will 
all come to nothing, who try to contend with 
this great King ! 



138 THE GREAT KING. [Lect. VI. 

A scene in the Alps. The mountain-slide. 

As the traveller passes over one of the beau- 
tiful lakes of Switzerland, his eye falls upon a 
streak of ruin which hangs like a scarf upon 
the shoulders of one of the mighty Alps. It 
looks small to the eye, though close by, but it is 
really larger than the ground occupied by all 
the city of Paris. It is about three miles wide 
and five long. Years ago the rains were heavy 
and soaked into the mountain, and a loud, crack- 
ing noise was first heard. Then the tall forests 
that covered the mountain began to nod and 
reel, and the birds to fly screaming away. Then, 
the rocks began to roll, and the whole side of 
the mountain began to tremble, and then to 
slide, — thousands of acres with all their forests 
began to slide, and then to rush and thunder, 
mingled with the crash of trees and the echo 
among the mountains, as all came rushing down, 
filling the air with dust, so that nothing could 
be seen, and causing the earth to tremble as if 



Lect. VI.] THE GREAT KING. 139 

The ruin. 

her very foundations were giving way! In five 
minutes it was all done! Nearly a million of 
property, one hundred and eleven houses, more 
than two hundred barns, and more than four 
hundred and fifty human beings, and whole 
herds of cattle, were swept away, and buried 
several hundred feet beneath the mass ! Three 
whole villages were blotted out for ever! No 
trace remained save a single bell that was carried 
from the church a long distance. The little 
lake at the foot of the mountain received a part 
of the descending mass, which caused the wa- 
ters to rise and sweep over an island seventy 
feet above the level of the lake, carrying all to 
ruin ! To this hour you can see where 

1 ' Mountains have fallen, 
Leaving a gap in the clouds, and with the shock 
Rocking their Alpine brethren ; filling up 
The ripe, green valleys with destruction's splinters 
Damming the rivers with a sudden dash, 
Which crushed the waters into mist, and made 
Their fountains find another channel." 



140 THE GREAT KING. [Lect. VI. 

Child and feather. 

O, had a little child with a feather in his hand 
stood there and seen this ruin coming, could he, 
by stretching out his little arm, have stopped it % 
Could he have turned it back? Yes, a thou- 
sand times easier than all created men could 
turn back or hinder God from doing what 
he thinks best to do or have done ! "I am 
a great King, saith the Lord of Hosts." 



LECTURE VII. 

THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. 

And it came to pass, fyc. — Luke vii. 11-16. 

Contents. — Poisonous valley. Looking into the valley. Young men's 
party. The dying man rescued. Remembrances. We dying. The morn- 
ing light. Walled towns. Christ travelling. The funeral. The mother's 
thoughts. The stranger's voice. The dead with no coffin. The staff 
mended ! Rivers of ice. The Alpenstock. The awful fall in the chasm. 
Glaciers in the night. A night scene. The twinkling light. The lost 
friend. Further unfoldings. Ingratitude. The child restored. Master of 
the grave. The dead brought back. A hard question. Reason first, 
for this miracle. For after ages. Reason second, for this miracle. 
The buried babe. Who are comforted? The funeral at sea. The sad 
crew of the ship. The burial. The ocean-grave. The dead to awake. 
The resurrection. Reason third, for this miracle. Spiritual teachings. 
Why Christ left the earth. The great design of Christ. The people's 
shout. The shout of all his family ! 

They tell us that there is a poisonous valley 
which has been visited by many travellers. 
It is small, and is surrounded by hills. As 
you look off from these hills, you see a level, 
circular basin, that looks smooth and fair, — 



144 THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. [Lect. VII. 

Poisonous valley. Looking into the valley. Young men's party. 

except there is not a living tree or bush, not a 
wayside flower, nor even a single green spire of 
grass to be seen. There is no wind in it, nor a 
living thing that moves. All over it lie the 
bleaching bones of the dead. The bones of the 
huge elephant and of the strong lion, of the 
timid hare and of the fleet deer, lie scattered 
around, while here and there lie the bones 
of some traveller who went into it in his igno- 
rance, and there found his grave. Nothing that 
ever goes down there comes up again ! 

Now suppose that on the brow of one of 
these surrounding hills were gathered a com- 
pany of young men. They gaze, silent and 
awe-struck, into the valley. While they look, 
a cry of terror bursts from them, for just at the 
foot of the rock on which they stand, they see 
a poor traveller writhing in distress and just 
gasping for breath ! He is too far gone to shout 
or utter another cry for help. In an instant, one 



Lect. VII.] THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. 145 

The dying man rescued. Remembrances. 

of the young men slips the end of a cord which 
he has in his hand over the point of a rock and 
slides down on the rope to the perishing stran- 
ger. He has just time enough to tie the rope 
round the dying man, and to beckon his com- 
rades to pull him up, before he himself falls by 
the poisonous air. They draw up the half-dead 
stranger and save him, but their companion and 
friend is down there dying ! No one can go to 
him ! No one can save him ! He must die 
and be left there to bleach with the dead ! And 
they now find, too, that the man whom they 
have saved was the bitter enemy of their friend. 
And their friend knew it, too, and knew it w^hen 
he put the rope round him, instead of his own 
body, after he got to him ! How they now 
speak of the nobleness, the generosity, and the 
goodness of their friend ! How that man who 
was his enemy feels, to think that he ever 
should have hated such a character! 



146 THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. [Lect. VII. 

We dying. The morning light. 

Ah, children ! you and I were in that poison- 
ous valley, and we were dying and unable to 
help ourselves, and He came and looked, and 
there was none to save, and He wondered that 
there was none to help ! He died that we 
might live. He " tasted death for every man." 
" While we were enemies, Christ died for us." 
O, if it were not that we have seen it so long 
and so often, how beautiful would be the light 
of the clear summer morning ! If we had not 
seen it so often, how charming would be the 
bush hanging loaded with roses ! If we had not 
heard the account so often, we should w T eep and 
exult at the story of Jesus Christ and his dying 
for men ! He had to descend even into the 
grave, in order to bring us up out of the poi- 
soned valley, and before he could ascend above 
all heaven. 

The story from which we take our text this 
afternoon is a wonderful one. In the days 



Lect. VIL] THE BEOKEN STAFF MENDED. 147 

Walled towns. Christ travelling. 

when Christ was on earth they had no cannon 
or powder, or such terrible weapons of war 
as we now have ; but they fought with swords 
and spears for the most part. Hence almost 
any kind of wall built up round a town would 
be a defence. These walled towns were full of 
people, and out of them they crept in the morn- 
ing, and went off to till the ground or to watch 
their cattle. No leper was permitted to live in 
such a town, and no dead were allowed to 
be buried within the walls. Our Saviour had 
one day been preaching to a great multitude, 
and working miracles, when he set out to enter 
one of these walled towns. A great multitude 
of people followed him. Some went, because 
they wanted to hear him preach again ; some, 
because they wanted to see him do some great 
miracle; some, because they wanted to know 
why he went into that walled town ; and some 
followed him because others did. Just before 



148 THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. [Lect. VII. 

The funeral. The mother's thoughts. 

they reach the gates of the town, they meet a 
funeral. It is a large funeral, though there is 
only one mourner. It is the mother of the 
dead, — a poor widow, — who has lost her only 
son, the staff of her age. It is towards evening, 
the hour of the day when they usually bury 
their dead. Christ looks weary, for it is sup- 
posed that he has walked about twelve miles to- 
day. When the two processions meet, they 
both stop. The weeping mother follows the 
bier. She is just thinking over how her son 
looked, how his voice used to sound, how he 
was dutiful and kind to her ! She is recalling 
his childhood, and the many hopes she had had 
concerning him. She is thinking how lonely 
her home will now be, how little she has to live 
for, how gladly she would die with him. She is 
closely veiled, and sees nothing but the dust on 
which she treads. She wonders why they have 
stopped. But the stopping will keep the dust 



Lect. VIL] THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. 149 

The stranger's voice. The dead with no coffin. 

of her child with her just so much longer ! 

How she weeps ! What makes her start so at 

the voice of a stranger, who kindly says, " Weep 

not " \ What makes her thrill at the sound ? 

She never heard that voice before ! She never 

heard such notes before ! She draws aside her 

veil, and there stands before her One, fairer 

than the sons of men ! She trembles, and is 

ready to fall down at his feet, though she hardly 

knows why. By a mysterious power, all are 

hushed and silent. In those countries they 

do not have coffins as we do. They place 

the corpse on a kind of bier, with a covering 

over it made of cloth, with a light frame, so 

that the dead man seems lying under a sort 

of canopy, with the narrow curtain at the head 

lifted up to show his pale face. He is wrapped 

in white linen, completely covered, except the 

face. That mysterious stranger looks in upon 

the face of the dead, with one hand resting on 

10 



150 THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. [Lect. VII. 

The staff mended! Rivers of ice. 

the bier. How hushed are all the multitude ! 
The silence is such that the rustling of the high 
palm-leaf might be heard. Now he speaks : 
" Young man, I say unto thee, arise ! " How 
quick the warm blood rushes through his veins ! 
How quick his cheek flushes ! How quick his 
pulse beats, — ■ his bosom heaves ! And now he 
sits up and speaks to his mother ! How grace- 
fully the Saviour takes him by the hand, and 
delivers him to his mother ! Her staff that was 
broken is restored to her ! Her child is brought 
back from the dead ! O, it is so like a dream 
that the mother cannot speak ! Her amazement 
is so great, that she cannot fall down at his feet. 
She sees nothing but her boy, who was lost and 
is found, who was dead and is alive again ! It 
was like being brought back from death to life 
herself 

Among the great Alps — awful beyond what 
any one can imagine — there are huge rivers of 



Lect. VIL] THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. 151 

The Alpenstock. 

ice ! solid ice, that come creeping down between 
the high peaks, sometimes two miles wide, and 
very deep ! They are all ice, but they crowd 
and grind so hard against the mountains that 
they break up into cakes, which lie side by side, 
like pieces of slate standing on their edges. 
Between these great cakes of ice, are openings, 
called crevices, down which you can look far, 
and down which, as you throw a stone, you hear 
it roll and bound and thunder a long, long 
while, before it reaches the bottom. Sometimes 
it would take a rope more than an eighth of a 
mile long to reach the bottom! In crossing 
over these glaciers, as they are called, you have 
to get a guide, and also to have a long, smooth 
staff, with a sharp iron in one end of it, to stick 
into the ice. This is called an Alpenstock, i. e. 
mountain-staff. In a certain place, one of these 
frozen rivers comes down between two awful 
peaks, one called the Peak of the Tempests, 



152 THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. [Lect. VII. 

The awful fall in the chasm. 

and the other the Peak of Terror. Some years 
ago a clergyman was on this glacier with his 
guide. As he came to a round opening, — the 
crevice, — he leaned on his Alpenstock, and bent 
over to look down the awful chasm. Sudden as 
thought, his staff broke, and down, down he 
went, out of sight in an instant ! His name 
was Mouron. After twelve days' labor, they 
let down a guide with a lantern tied round 
his neck, at the peril of his life. Twice they 
drew him up to breathe, nearly exhausted. The 
third time he found the mangled and bruised 
body, seven hundred feet from the top of the 
glacier where he fell in, and he was drawn 
up with the dead man in his arms. Sometimes 
the people of the Alps have to cross these 
glaciers in the night, or else freeze to death. 
A single slip of the foot, or a single false step, 
is certain death. "When they cross in the night, 
they have the Alpenstock and the lantern. 



Lect. VII.] THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. 153 

Glaciers in the night. A night scene. 

JSTow imagine that you were on the brink of 
one of these glaciers in the night. You are 
alone, and you must cross it and find a shelter 
or you perish. The winds howl, and the great 
avalanches of ice thunder and echo among these 
awful solitudes, and the storm-notes come boom- 
ing up from far below. You cautiously creep 
along on the edge of the ice-cake, and see 
an awful chasm running along, one on each 
side of your narrow path. As you thrust 
down the sharp point of your staff into the ice, 
you move very slowly. And now you have got 
out a mile into the middle of the glacier, and 
just as you have got between two fearful open- 
ings, your staff breaks and is useless, and that 
moment a gust of wind, fierce as a tiger, puts 
out your light ! 

Ah, now what will you do ? To move back- 
ward or forward is certain destruction ! To stop 
there is to be frozen as solid as the ice beneath 



154 THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. [Lect. VII. 

The twinkling light. The lost friend. 

your feet ! What will you do % You shout, 
and the swelling winds carry your voice away, 
and it is lost in the storm. Just then you 
see, on the far-off land, a little twinkling light. 
In a few minutes more you would have given 
up and sunk down into the opening ice, where 
you would never be heard of again, till the 
resurrection morning. But now the light seems 
to creep nearer and nearer to you. It comes 
up, and a man stands close to you, — only that 
deep chasm is between you and him. He hangs 
the little lantern on the end of his Alpenstock, 
and reaches it to you. You take it off very 
carefully. He then reaches again to give you 
the needed staff. You seize it eagerly, and give 
it a jerk, and by that jerk he loses his balance, 
falls in, and down, down he falls, and lies 
bleeding and mangled far down under the deep 
ice ! You had no time to ask his name or learn 
who he was. You only know that he perilled 



Lect. VIL] THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. 155 

Further unfoldings. Ingratitude. 

and lost his life for you ! With that staff and 
that lantern you reach the land, find a dwelling, 
and are saved. Ah, yes ! and you learn that 
the man who thus lost his life for you was one 
who knew you would be lost unless he went to 
you, and who expected it w T ould cost him his 
life, and the one whom, of all men in the world, 
you had treated the most unkindly, and who 
had reason to despise you and hate you, and to 
be willing to have you perish in the dark, cold 
night, under the deep, awful glacier ! And now 
suppose that after this you are never heard to 
speak of the kindness of that man, never to 
mention how you were delivered, never to think 
over your unkindness to him, and his nobleness 
and kindness in forgetting it all and coming 
to save you ! — is this being grateful? 

So was it with us when God gave us a lamp 
to our feet, — his holy word ; and a staff to lean 
upon, — the beautiful promises of the Bible! 



156 THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. [Lect. VII. 

The child restored. Master of the grave. 

The poor widow who was told to dry her tears, 
and who had her son restored to her, was only 
one among our race to whom Christ hath done 
good. She w T as only one to whom he brought a 
staff in the place of the one that was broken, 
and a lantern in the place of the one that sin 
had put out ! 

This was not the first child that had been 
raised from the dead to life. Elijah raised one, 
— the child of a poor widow who fed him in the 
famine ; and Elisha raised one, — the son of the 
woman who was so kind to him; but how 
differently they did it ! They knelt long in 
prayer ; they lay down upon the child in both 
cases ; they prayed God to do it. They had no 
power to do it themselves. They could not 
speak, and cause the dead to hear and awake. 
They were not masters of the grave, and had 
not the keys of death and of hell ; they were 
mere servants. But when Christ the Son came, 



Lect. VII.] THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. 157 

The dead brought back. 

he did whatsoever the Father did. " He spake, 
and it was done" ; "he commanded, and it stood 
fast " ; he opened, and no man shut ; and so 
he had not to stop to pray ; but in his own 
name, and by his own power, he awaked the 
dead ! 

Do we suppose that the young man, thus 
brought back from the dead, could remember 
what he saw in the world of spirits ] If he 
had gone to the world of the blessed, and could 
remember what he saw, how would he dread 
to come back ! If he had gone to the world 
of the lost, what horror would have been painted 
on his face ! JSTo, we suppose that in mercy a 
veil was drawn over the spirit-world, and he 
only felt that he had been in a deep sleep, from 
which he awaked at the voice of Jesus ! 

You may wonder why Christ does not meet 
every funeral and raise the dead, and especially 
why he does not always remember the poor 



158 THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. [Lect. VII. 

A hard question. Reason first, for this miracle. 

widow who mourns the loss of an only son. 
Why should this widow of Nain be selected to 
receive this mercy, while thousands of such 
weeping mothers have followed an only son to 
the grave, and heard no voice saying, " Young 
man, I say unto thee, arise!" And this leads me 
to speak of the reasons that led Christ to per- 
form this wonderful act. It was not altogether 
for the sake of that mother, though he had, 
we are told, compassion on her. But it was 
done, — 

1. To show all men that ever read the story , 
that Christ is good. 

He wants men to trust their lives and their 
children and their friends and their souls to 
him ; but they cannot and will not do this, 
unless they believe that he is good. We cannot 
love or trust one who is not good. We do not 
want a bad man to come into our families ; we 
do not want to commit our children, and all 



Lect. VIL] THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. 159 

For after ages. Reason second, for this miracle. 

that we have, to a bad man. But Christ knew 
that many a dying mother would want to com- 
mit her helpless babes to him, and the dying 
father would want to leave his family with him, 
and the poor sinner would want to look to him 
for mercy, and we all should want to make him 
our Saviour, and so he took that occasion to 
show that he remembers the mourner in her 
tears, and pities the sorrows of his creatures. 
It is not because he does not know or regard 
the tears of the mourner, at every funeral, that 
he does not turn back the tide of their grief by 
bringing back and restoring the dead. 

2. Christ raised this young man to life, to show 
that he can raise all the dead. 

Does it seem, w 7 hen we bury the old, worn- 
out man, who for a long time could hardly 
see or hear or walk, and who has now become 
as cold and as insensible as the grave in which 
we lay him, — does it seem as if there was any 



160 THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. [Lect. VII. 

The buried babe. Who are comforted ? 

power that can bring him up from that grave 
alive, and restore him again to youth and vigor, 
activity and health ? Does it seem as if there 
was any arm that could lift up that poor dead 
woman from the dust of death, and restore to 
her the grace and the beauty of youth ? And 
that little babe that we bury ! His dust will 
soon be mingled with that of the earth, and not 
a particle even of his coffin Avill remain, — can 
he be found, and that little body be restored 
to life again ] Hear what age says, when it 
is looking for death : " I know that my Re- 
deemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the 
latter day upon the earth, and though, after 
my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my 
flesh I shall see God ; whom I shall see for 
myself, and not another, though my reins be 
consumed within me." Hear the weeping sister 
say, at the grave of a beloved brother, " I 
know that he shall rise again at the last day." 



Lect. VII.] THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. 161 

The funeral at sea. 

Yes, by touching that bier, and calling back 
that young man, Christ showed that he has the 
keys of death and of hell in his hand. And 
now Faith leans upon him. We are not afraid 
to bury our beloved ones down in the dark, 
cold grave. 

Can anything be more solemn than a funeral 
at sea ] The morning sun rises, and not a cloud 
appears to shut off his rays. A slight breeze 
plays on the surface of the slumbering ocean. 
The stillness of the morning is only disturbed 
by the ripple of the water, or the diving of 
a flying-fish. It seems as if the calm and 
noiseless spirit of the deep is brooding over 
the waters. The national flag, displayed half 
way down the royal-mast, plays in the breeze, 
unconscious of its solemn import. The vessel 
glides in queenly serenity, and seems tranquil as 
the element on whose surface she moves. She 
knows not of the sorrows that are in her bosom, 



162 THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. [Lect. VII. 

The sad crew of the ship. 

and seems to look down on the briny expanse 
beneath her in all the confidence and security 
of strength. 

To the minds of her brave crew it is a 
morning of gloom. They have been boarded 
by the angel of death, and the forecastle now 
contains all that was mortal of his victim. His 
soul has gone to its final account. Grouped 
around the windlass, and left to their own 
reflections, the hardy sons of the ocean mingle 
their sympathies with each other. They think 
of their own mortality. Conscience is at her 
post. They feel that eternity has realities. 
They speak of the virtues of their messmate, 
— his honesty, sensibility, and generosity. One 
had seen him share the last dollar of his hard- 
earned wages with a distressed shipmate. All 
attest his liberality. They speak, too, of his 
accomplishments as a sailor, — of the nerve of 
his arm and the fearlessness of his soul. They 



Lect. VII.] THE BK0KEN STAFF MENDED. 163 

The burial. 

had seen him in the hour of peril, when the 
winds of heaven were let loose in all their fury, 
and destruction was on the wing, seize the helm 
and hold the ship securely within his grasp, till 
the danger had passed by. 

And now they are summoned to prepare for 
the rites of burial, and to pay their last honors 
to their dead companion. The work commences 
with a heavy heart and many a sigh. A rude 
coffin is soon nailed together, and the dead 
placed within it. All are ready for the final 
scene. The main hatches are the bier. A 
spare sail is the pall. The poor sailors, in their 
tar-stained garments, stand around the coffin. 
All are silent. The freshening breeze moans 
through the cordage. The main-topsail is hove 
to the mast. The ship, as if amazed, pauses on 
her course and stands still. The bell tolls, and 
at the knell, • and the words, " We commit this 
body to the deep," you hear the plunge of the 



164 THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. [Lect. VII. 

The ocean-grave. The dead to awake. 

coffin, and see the tears start from the eyes 
of the generous tars. You think of his home, 
— his widowed mother, his sisters, w T ho will 
listen and watch in vain for his returning foot- 
steps. You follow the coffin as it slowly travels 
down, down miles, and it may be and is hours in 
reaching its resting-place. O, we are not afraid 
thus to bury men in the ocean, and see them 
sink down in the dark, deep w r aters, and find a 
resting-place among the corals and the shells, 
for we know there is an Eye that never looks off 
from that buried one, and a Power that will 
raise him up and restore him to life again! 

He says to the weeper, " Weep not ! thy brother 
shall rise again." At any moment, — even now, 
while I am speaking, — he could cause the arch- 
angel's trumpet to sound, and in the twinkling 
of an eye, every grave would open, and every 
one that has ever died would start up and stand 
on his feet. Without preparation or time, he 



Lect. VIL] THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. 165 

The resurrection. Reason third, for this miracle. 

can speak, and the dead on the way to the grave 
is turned back alive and well. And thus by 
his own power will he raise all the dead. No 
matter if the sleeper has been forgotten, or 
buried for ages ; no matter that no one knows 
that he ever lived, or where his dust may be, — 
there is One who is the Resurrection and the 
Life, and no one shall be forgotten before him. 
In his hand are the deep places of the earth. 
Death and hell are naked before him, and 
destruction hath no covering. " The Redeemer 
of the whole earth shall he be called." 

3. Christ raised this young man to life to shoiv 
that his kingdom is a spiritual kingdom. 

"When he created bread and fish, and fed five 
thousand hungry people, the great object was ? 
not to relieve the wants of the body, but to 
lead them to labor, not for the meat that perish- 
eth, but for that bread which came down from 
heaven. When he opened the eyes of the blind, 

11 



166 THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. [Lect. VII. 

Spiritual teachings. Why Christ left the earth. 

it was to lead men to see that he could open 
their spiritual eyes and cause thern to see the 
glory of God. When he made the sick of the 
palsy to be well, it was to show that he had 
power also to forgive sin. And when he raised 
the dead, it was to teach us that he can raise 
those who are dead in trespasses and sins to 
life; that he can command the spirits, the souls 
of men, and whether they are on earth or in 
eternity, he can command them and they will 
obey him. So men are told to arise from 
the dead, i. e. spiritual death, and go to Christ, 
who will give them life. O, how many parents 
have seen their children converted to God, and 
have wept for joy, — " this my son was lost and 
is found again; was dead, and is made alive!" 
Christ could have stayed upon earth to this hour, 
and spent these hundreds of years in going 
about healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, 
opening the ears of the deaf, and raising the 



Lect. VIL] THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. 167 

The great design of Christ. The people's shout. 

dead ; but there is a greater work than all this. 
He is preparing to raise all the dead, to give 
healing to the soul, and to cause ten thousand 
times ten thousand hearts to rejoice, — to rejoice 
for ever and ever ! 

"We have no account of anything great or 
good, which the man who was raised from the 
dead did, in after life. We have no account 
of the long life of the mother. No, it was 
done to manifest forth the character of the 
great Redeemer. It was to cause us, and all 
who shall ever read the story, to believe and 
trust in his mercy and in his almighty power. 
The design of Christ is chiefly to give spiritual 
blessings to men, and therefore he does not 
continue such miracles. When the great mul- 
titude of people saw the young man rise up 
from the dead at the word of Christ, and heard 
him speak, and saw him given back to his 
mother, great fear fell on them, and they broke 



168 THE BROKEN STAFF MENDED. [Lect. VII. 

1 

The shout of all his family ! 

out in shouts and glorified God ! O, this was 
only one act of Jesus our Lord ! 

But when at the last great day, when every 
eye shall see him, as he comes on the clouds 
of heaven, when he has raised up all the dead, 
when he has gathered all his people, when all 
his mighty acts have been seen, when all his 
great works of mercy have been made known, — 
there will go up from all the universe of God 
a shout such as was never heard before ! Fear 
and trembling, hope and joy, will fill the hearts 
of all his people, and all will draw near to him, 
every holy being in heaven and on earth and 
under the earth, saying, " Blessing and honor 
and glory and power be unto Him that sitteth 
upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever 
and ever." 



LECTURE VIII. 

THE FLOWERS. 

Consider the lilies of the field. — Matt. vi. 28. 

Contents. — Christ in the streets. Street sermons. Ont-of-door texts. 
God's creations. Paintings of nature. Spring's doings. A dark picture. 
A garden hung up in the air. First thing to think of. " Here we are! " 
The flower's speech. The rose and the tulip. The second thing to think 
of. The third thing to be thought of Broken teapot. The prisoner and 
the wall-flower. The city cellar. Flowers in the coffin. How to improve 
flowers. Rose-bud on the tomb. How we use flowers. Night-blooming 
Cereus. Teachings of flowers. A sad thought. A child's doings. The 
dying boy. Language of the rose. Stupidity of men. Beauty for all. 
Voices all around us. Creation's testimony. Memories of the old man. 
Old Homer. The three gardens. Bright thoughts. Grave of the young 
girl. Nothing good to be lost. Preaching of the flowers. 

My dear children, when the blessed Sav- 
iour was on earth, " he went about doing good." 
He went on foot from place to place, healing 
the sick, and preaching the Gospel wherever 
he was. And as the people followed him in 
throngs, bringing their sick to be healed, he 



170 THE FLOWERS. [Lect. VIII. 

Christ in the streets. Street sermons. 

used to preach to them in the streets, and so 
his sermons were mostly preached out of doors, 
and by the wayside. He did not take texts to 
preach from, as ministers now do, but made 
his sermons out of anything around him. At 
one time, when the morning sun was coming 
up over the hills, he points to it and tells his 
disciples that they are the light of the world ! 
At another time, he pointed to the salt which 
had been washed and drenched, till good for 
nothing, and then showed that his people are 
like it, when they lose his spirit. There is a 
white city on the top of yonder high hill, and 
it is seen from every place around, and he tells 
his disciples that they are like such a city set 
on a hill ! That man who is ploughing keeps 
his eye on the furrow ; he does not turn and 
look back a moment ; and he tells us that, if we 
look back, we are not fit for the kingdom of 
heaven. From the man sowing in the field, 



Lect. VIIL] the flowers. 171 

Out-of-door texts. God's creations. 

Christ teaches how the word of God is preached, 
and how different men receive it. So he teaches 
by the vine by the wayside ; by the fig-tree in 
sight ; by the vineyard on the hillside ; by the 
casting a net into the sea ; by the lighting of 
the sparrow on the ground ; and by the falling 
of a hair. Then he sees some lilies, and tells 
us to consider them, — how they are more rich- 
ly clothed than Solomon in all his glory ever 
was ! 

Do you wonder that Christ preached from 
these things 1 The same hand that wrote the 
texts in the Bible painted the lily. God hath 
painted the skies, and made the stars to flash 
and sparkle, and turned the clouds of the 
morning and evening into palaces of gold, or 
rolled them up like great, floating mountains 
of silver. He does not glue the clouds to 
the sky, nor hang them up there like great 
sheets of lead, or spread them out like lakes of 



172 THE FLOWERS. [Lect. VIII. 

Paintings of nature. Spring's doings. 

ink, but he rolls them from, one beautiful form 
into another. He folds the heavens in festoons, 
and hangs the rainbow over the earth like a 
great wreath of flowers. He paints the grass 
on which you tread, the deepest green. And 
on the summer's morning, when the world sits 
silent, as if waiting for a choir of angels to 
lift up the voice and praise him, or when the 
great red sun goes down at night like a joyous 
child going to his pillow, how beautiful ! What 
a look the sun throws back, when he turns 
the lake into a great basin of gold ! 

And the spring ! when the winter goes away, 
what a resurrection ! The river bursts from 
the chains of ice that held it so fast ; the lit- 
tle seed that lay freezing in the ground, begins 
to sprout; the little bird whose notes seem to 
tremble for joy, the small insect that leaps 
up and utters his hum of gladness, the moun- 
tains with their thin veil of blue over their 



Lect. VIII.] THE FLOWERS. 173 

A dark picture. A garden hung up in the air. 

faces, the buds that swell and burst, and the 
very trees that seem to clap their hands for 
joy, — all preach about God ! 

" Consider the lilies ! " We must, my dear 
children, study the works of God. O, he might 
have made the grass to be colored like the dirt 
in the street ; the trees to shoot up their branch- 
es like iron wire, without a green leaf to cover 
them; the morning sky to be black, like the pall 
on a coffin ; and he might have made every 
beast to howl in pain, and every bird to shriek 
in notes of agony, and every bush to bristle 
with thorns, and every flower to hang its head 
in a sickly yellow, with a fragrance like that of 
an old grave ; and the sparkling brooks might 
have been made to lie still and dead ; and yet, 
he has made the flowers to smile on us, and has 
hung, as it were, a whole flower-garden lifted up 
on a single apple-tree, and has clothed the pear, 
the peach, and the cherry trees in beautiful flow- 



174 THE FLOWERS. [Lect. VIIL 

First thing to think of. " Here we are ! " 

ers, like a queen's robe thrown over each tree. 
The fields of grain send abroad their perfume. 
The very potato has a charming flower. All 
these hath God made, not to be eaten, or drunk, 
or burned up, but to make our hearts glad and 
our eyes delighted. Consider the flowers. 

1. How many floivers God has made. 

I have sometimes been deep in the wild 
American forests, sometimes have followed a 
great river up in the forest till it became so 
small that I could step over it, sometimes have 
climbed mountains very lofty, and then have 
gone down into deep valleys ; but I have hardly 
ever been to the spot, where the light of the sun 
comes, where I have not found flowers. They 
look into the water as they lean over it on 
the bank of every stream ; they peep out of the 
cracks in the rocks ; they stand smiling at the 
mouth of the dark cavern, — and everywhere 
seem to say, " Here we are ! God has been here 



Lect. Vffl.'] THE FLOWERS. 175 

The flower's speech. The rose and the tulip. 

to plant us ! " Under the burning sun of the 
South, and far up among the icebergs of the 
North, we find the bright, sun-kissed flower, 
or the pale, meek dweller among the snows. 
The flower ! Hear its voice ! "I am willing to 
hang over the deep, awful precipice, or to bloom 
in the window of the poorest cottage, or to live 
in the spray and the thunderings of the cat- 
aract, or to cheer the room of the sick man, 
or to smile in the din and noise of the factory, 
or to live in the smoky lane of the city, or 
to add new beauty to the costliest palace ever 
reared ! " 

You set out one little stem of a rose, and 
place it in your window, (and there are as many 
as two thousand kinds of roses,) and its bud 
will swell, and it will open its petals and shed 
out its fragrance, and long cheer you, as it hangs 
on its little stalk, trembling in its beauty. You 
plant the bulb of the tulip in the ground, and it 



176 THE FLOWERS. [Lect. VIII. 

The second thing to think of. 

sleeps there all the winter ; but in the spring it 
comes out and blossoms, and makes every passer- 
by to pause and consider its beauty. From the 
tall cedar on the top of Lebanon to the hyssop 
in the wall, the moss or lichen on the rock, the 
world is full of the most beautiful flowers. 

2. Consider hoiv many kinds of flowers God 
has made. 

When we go out and walk over a field, we 
tread on a multitude of flowers, white, red, 
blue, and yellow, whose names we do not even 
know. Every kind of flower now found in 
gardens or in greenhouses, once grew wild in 
the fields. In one single garden, or in one 
greenhouse, what a great variety do you see ! 
How bright the red is on some ! How pure 
the white on others ! How soft the velvet, or 
how faint and lovely the blush is spread over 
others ! Up the same little stem the juices 
run, and are then colored, and spread over the 



Lect. VHL] the flowers. 177 

The third thing to be thought of. Broken teapot. 

leaves and flowers so softly, tnat you can hardly 
tell where one color begins, or another ends. 

3. Consider how beautiful God has made the 
flowers. 

Perhaps there are some people who see no 
more beauty in a flower, than if it were a cab- 
bage ; and the finest rose is nothing to them ; 
and perhaps there are those who take no pleas- 
ure in music, and who would not thrill at the 
song of angels. But such people are not often 
found. We admire what is beautiful, and we 
cannot help it. "What makes the poor washer- 
woman save her broken teapot and plant her 
flower in it, and watch it every day, and feel 
such a joy when it blossoms? A poor prisoner 
tells us, that from his little grated window he 
could just see a wall-flower that was creeping 
up in the prison-yard, and trying to get into the 
sun. Every day and hour he watched it; and 
when it got up high, it seemed to rejoice and 



178 THE FLOWERS. [Lect. VIII. 

The prisoner and the wall-flower. The city cellar. 

look over the wall, green and thrifty, as much 
as to say, " I am willing that my foot should 
be in the prison-yard, pinched up among the 
bricks, if I may only get sunlight and pure air, 
and look up into the bright heavens ! " The 
tenant of the dungeon seemed to feel that the 
wall-flower knew him, and answered back his 
love, and smiled upon him. It was the only 
thing in all the world that seemed to care for 
him. But one day a rude or a wicked hand 
destroyed it ! O, then he felt that the last and 
only friend he had in the world was gone, 
and he sat down and wept like a child ! What 
comfort in the sight of one common flower ! 
What makes the poor dweller in the city 
cellar, where the sunlight never comes, try so 
hard to make her little pale flower live % She 
gives it almost all of her dingy window. What 
makes the sick one smile, when a bunch of 
flowers is brought to his bedside, and feel as 



Lect. VHLJ THE FLOWERS. 179 

Flowers in the coffin. How to improve flowers. 

if they were the smiles of angels % What 
makes the mother pluck the fairest flowers, 
and put them into the coffin of her child, so 
that the memory of the last look upon her 
child shall be connected with the beauty of 
flowers which clustered on its bosom, or were 
held in the waxen hand ? There is not a 
prison or a dungeon in the world where the 
heart would not be softened by one single 
flower. And what is curious, there is not a 
flower on the wide prairie, or on the high moun- 
tain, or in the deep valley, so beautiful that 
it may not be made more beautiful by culture. 
The rose becomes more " double," and the tulip 
and the carnation wear a more gorgeous dress, 
and every variety is greatly improved by cul- 
ture. Perhaps this was a part of the care of 
Adam in the garden of Eden. I never see a 
flower droop without a feeling of sadness, or 
crushed without feeling pain, or a leaf fall 



180 THE FLOWERS. [Lect. VIII. 

Rose-bud on the tomb. How we use flowers. 

without feeling regret. Some flowers seem to 
speak to the eye, by their great beauty ; and 
some to the smell, by their fragrance and sweet- 
ness. And if the flowers could break out in 
singing, in proportion to their number and 
beauty, how would the fields, the hills, the 
valleys, the forests, and the- mountains send out 
melody, sweet almost as that of heaven ! The 
mother calls her infant a flower. If it dies, 
a rose-bud, unopened., carved on the tombstone, 
tells the story. "Were we to weave a garland 
for the greatest and the best man that ever 
lived, we should weave it of flowers ; and thus 
the human heart is always saying that flowers 
are the most beautiful things in the world. 
We want them to adorn the palace of kings ; 
we want them at the great festival; we place 
them on the brow of the fair bride ; we want 
them in the saloon of wealth ; we want them 
in our sick-room, and their presence and per- 



Lect. VIIL] the flowers. 181 

Night-blooming Cereus. 

fume must cheer our coffins. It is the flower — 
not one made of wax, or paper, or cloth, but 
a real flower — that we want, such as was pen- 
cilled by the Divine hand. Some of these 
creations of God are so delicate, that they must 
open in the night, and look out by star-light 
for a moment, and then shut up again for ever ! 
One can almost weep to watch and see the 
night-blooming Cereus, — bursting out with al- 
most the beauty of an angel, and, too delicate 
for earth, perishing before morning ! On a 
calm Sabbath morning, when the whole of crea- 
tion seems waiting for a visit from the great 
King and Maker, how the flowers, even the 
humblest in your garden, the shrubbery at your 
door, the great trees in the orchard, the flowers 
that grow wild and alone on the hill and in the 
fields, all wake up, bathed and washed in dew, 
and all seeming to long for a voice with which 
to praise God ! Consider the flowers, and tell 

12 



182 THE FLOWERS. [Lect. VIII. 

Teachings of flowers. A sad thought. 

us what is their language % Do they not speak 
of the greatness, the skill, and the wisdom of that 
Being who hath sowed them all over the earth, 
in numbers almost infinite, and painted them 
with a skill more than human ? What a 
beautiful song was that of Solomon when he 
said, " Lo ! the winter is past ; the rain is over 
and gone ; the flowers appear on the earth ; the 
time of the singing of birds is come, and the 
voice of the turtle is heard in our land." In 
some countries, they carry fresh garlands of flow- 
ers and hang them over the grave of the dead, as 
if the cold sleeper beneath the sods must still 
enjoy the beauty and fragrance of flowers. 

Mow stupid too many are ! 

There are gardens that never had a flower in 
them, and parlors that never were gladdened by 
a blossom, and so there are hearts that never 
loved them! But ask that father why he is 
so choice of that little tree which was planted in 



Lect. VIIL] the flowers. 183 

A child's doings. The dying boy. Language of the rose. 

the garden by his little son, before he went down 
into the grave % Ask that mother why she stops 
and stands still before that little flower, planted 
by her loving child before she left her to go far 
away from the home of her childhood ? Ah, it 
was because a loved hand planted them, and 
they seem to speak of them ! They are memori- 
als. And ought we not to admire the flower 
which our Heavenly Father planted and painted 
and beautified] Does not each one speak of 
Him? Why, if one of these little children 
were on his death-bed, and should say to his 
mother, " I shall die, my mother, but the flower 
that I planted will live ; and when I am in the 
grave, will you not bend over it and think 
of your little boy ? " Would not his mother 
cherish and love that flower, and water it with 
her tears ? And the rose that folds her leaves 
on her beautiful bosom, and that hangs her head 
and fills the air with fragrance, seems to say, 



184 THE FLOWERS. [Lect. VIII. 

Stupidity of men. Beauty for all. 

" God made me to smile on you, and make you 
think of him ! " And yet men will trample on 
flowers, pass by them without one look, or, 
if they see them, give not one thought to God ! 
O, how many will enter your parlor and admire 
your skill and your care in rearing the beautiful 
flowers in your windows, without giving one 
thought to the skill and wisdom of Him who 
created them ! If they consider the lilies, they 
do not consider Him who made them. Why 
can they not lift the heart to Him whose sun- 
beams spread the different colors so clear and 
bright, so distinct and yet blended together, so as 
no human pencil could paint them ! 

The world is full of beauty, created by our 
kind Heavenly Father, not for the rich and the 
great merely, but for all, so that the poorest 
man may have his cottage made as cheerful 
as if he were a king. We get tired of a flower 
in a lady's bonnet made by human skill, but we 



Lect. VIIL] the flowers. 185 

Voices all around us. Creation's testimony. 

never tire over those that God made. His sun 
is gold, his stars are silver; his birds and insects 
on the wing in the air, and the swift swimmers 
down in the deep waters, are painted most 
exquisitely. The little flower that hangs on its 
tiny stem ; and the stars that flash in the great 
arch of heaven ; and the morning, after the veil 
of night is lifted up, coming up from the east, 
fresh as if bathed in the dews of the first 
creation; and the spring, breathing life into 
every pore of the earth ; and the sun wrapped in 
the drapery of kings, riding on a canopy of 
gold ; and men standing erect, with their bones 
and joints and skin and limbs all in health, with 
a voice that can make the heart thrill, whether 
lifted up in song or in eloquence, with an eye 
that flashes intelligence or affection, and with a 
mind that makes him the lord of the world, — 
these all are made by God, to show us what 
beautiful things he can make ! 



186 THE FLOWERS. [Lect. VIII. 

Memories of the old man. Old Homer. 

Is it not wonderful that all religions, whether 
the true or a fable, — all have, as a part of their 
history, the story of the garden where man was 
first placed ] Not one that does not mingle the 
garden, and running waters, and immortal trees 
and fruits, as the best heaven the imagination 
can form ! When an old man goes back in 
memory to the days of his childhood, he always 
goes back to the garden whose alleys he trod, 
and whose flowers he gathered, and whose 
shade he sat under, when the grass was green 
and bees were humming, and everything was so 
bright. 

Old Homer, the great poet, who lived a great 
while ago, tells us that Laertes, one of his 
heroes, returned home from the wars to his 
enclosed grass-plat, surrounded by his thirteen 
pear-trees ! — probably the description of the 
very garden that Homer himself played in when 
a little boy ! 



Lect. VHL] THE FLOWERS. 187 



The three gardens. Bright thoughts. 



When God talked with Adam at his creation, 
he took him to a garden, and gave it to him as 
his home. When the Saviour went out to pray, 
the very night before he was put to death, 
he went to a garden ; and when he was buried, 
it was in a garden. And the heaven to which 
he will take his people is called Paradise, or a 
garden. 

What ivill heaven be ? 

Here, our climate chills and blights, the insects 
cut off our beautiful things, and the fairest that 
earth knows must die! Here, it is said, the 
nightingale must have her eyes put out to make 
her song the sweetest; the flower must have 
water withheld to make its blossoms the richest, 
and its leaves must be crushed to make them 
give out their sweetest perfume. But in heaven, 
the flowers that died in Eden when sin entered 
will live, never to die. There will be no coffined 
child with flowers in its fingers to make death 



188 THE FLOWERS. [Lect. VIII. 

Grave of the young girl. Nothing good to be lost. 

seem less gloomy. I once attended the funeral 
of a lovely girl about fifteen years old, and after 
the coffin was put down in its deep grave, 
her weeping schoolmates came up and looked 
into the cold grave, and then cast their flowers 
and bouquets on the coffin, and almost covered 
it. It seemed like Hope going down and cheer- 
ing the darkness of the tomb. But I thought, 
too, that He who made those flowers so beauti- 
ful would raise up that Christian child and 
cause her to bloom, — a flower in the garden 
of God for ever. Ah, indeed ! the roses that 
grow there will never fade nor decay. All that 
is beautiful here, in form or color or deed or 
character, will be there. The beautiful things 
here, are only what were left after sin had 
blighted Eden, and the immortal flowers had 
all been removed. 

Children, when the earth shall be burned up, 
all that we admire and love so much will not 



Lect. VIII.] THE FLOWERS. 189 

Preaching of the flowers. 

be destroyed ! No, God will save it all ! He 
will have it in heaven. Consider the flowers ! 
Each one, though its foot is in the ground, lifts 
its head as high towards heaven as it can, and 
each one seems to preach to us of the wisdom 
and power and goodness of God, and each one 
seems to ask, " Will these children fear and 
love and obey Christ, so that they may all be 
transplanted to the garden of heaven, or will 
they be wicked, and for ever be separated from 
all that is beautiful and lovely and good, in all 
the kingdom of God ? " A world where not a 
flower will ever grow ! "What a world ! 



LECTURE IX. 

THE ANGEL'S EKRAND. 

Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one 
of them is forgotten before God? Ye are of more value 
than many sparrows. — Luke xii. 6, 7. 

Contents. — How to make a great river. Wide country and long river. 
American birds. English birds. Sparrow of the Bible. The dead spar- 
row. The dead babe. God cares for all. Value of a soul. Powers of 
the sparrow. Cannot think or plan. Storm among mountains. Descrip- 
tion. Shadows. Bright visions. Child in the cradle. What the child 
may become. Fifty years of life. Child and sparrow compared. Sir 
John Franklin. What a man may become. What is it to do great things ? 
Many miracles daily. Two strangers meeting. Society of heaven. The 
children present. What they will be. Christ's care. All are remem- 
bered. Little fruit-tree. What to live hereafter. Angels on the star. 
Their dialogue. The angel's errand. What he did on earth. Watching 
the child. What the sower has done. End of earth. The future of the 
good man. 

A small island cannot have large rivers. In 
order to have a great river, the rains must fall, 
and the snows must melt a long way off from 



Lect. IX.] THE ANGEL'S ERRAND. 193 

How to make a great river. Wide country and long river. 

the ocean ; and as the river begins to run, there 
must be hundreds, and even thousands, of little 
ponds and great lakes, which first receive the 
waters, and then give them out to feed the river. 
Thus the stream, which sets out small, receives 
water from every pond and lake till it reaches 
the ocean. When it first starts, you might 
almost empty the spring with a little cup. 
From the very nature of things, a wide country 
and great rivers go together. Probably there 
are at least ten thousand of these reservoirs 
to make the one river, St. Lawrence. 

And where there are great rivers, there are 
great plains, and great mountains, and tall trees, 
and everything seems to correspond, and to be 
made on a great scale. When the first settlers 
of America came here, they left their homes 
in the beautiful island of Great Britain. There 
they had wild birds, which they had known 
from infancy. When they reached these shores, 



194 THE ANGEL'S ERRAND. [Lect. IX. 

American birds. English birds. 

the birds were different, and usually larger. 
The robin of England was not here, nor was 
the lark, nor the sparrow ; and so they gave 
the name of robin to a larger bird than their 
old acquaintance at home. So of the lark and 
the sparrow. Our sparrow is larger than the 
English, and so is our lark larger than theirs. 
Their sparrow lives in the cities ; ours in the 
country. Theirs builds its nest on the house- 
tops or in the eaves ; ours in the grass, or in 
the low bush. Theirs fly in flocks, and fre- 
quent the cities, and flutter on the pavements ; 
ours for the most part is a solitary bird, and 
never goes near the city. Our robin perches 
on the top of trees, and pours out a loud song ; 
theirs sings more on the wing, and in far less 
loud and solemn notes. Our lark gets on the 
very top of the tree before he really sings ; 
theirs begins at the ground, and sings as he 
rises up towards the sky, in notes more and 



Lect. IX.] THE ANGEL'S ERRAND. 195 

Sparrow of the Bible. The dead sparrow. 

more joyous, till lie is lost in the vault of 
heaven. 

The sparrow of the Scriptures is probably the 
same as the English, — dwelling in multitudes 
in cities, and so plenty that they really have 
no value in the estimation of men. Five of 
them are worth only two farthings, — one cent 
of our money ! Five birds for a cent ! And 
yet, Christ assures us, " not one of them is 
forgotten before God ! " Why should a spar- 
row be thought of so little consequence, while 
a human being is so much more esteemed ? 
A sparrow may be found killed in the street, 
but no one would pick it up, or even stop to 
look at it. But let a little child be found killed 
and thrown into the street, and the whole com- 
munitv would be moved, and the officers of 
justice would at once search and scour the 
region to find who did it. The little sparrow 
might lose its parents and cry for food, and 



196 THE ANGEL'S ERRAND. [Lect. IX. 

The dead babe. God cares for all. 

no one would heed it. But let the motherless 
and fatherless child cry for food, and how quick 
the hand is stretched out to feed it ! Let a 
cold storm beat upon a thousand sparrows and 
kill them all, and it would be hardly noticed ; 
but let two little children be found frozen to 
death, locked in each other's arms, and the story 
will electrify the whole people of the land ! 
And yet, God remembers every such little bird, 
sees it the fledgling in the nest, watches it 
when it first tries its wing, and creates every 
seed that it eats and every crumb that it picks 
up ! The little creature may have no value 
in the estimation of men, but he is God's 
workmanship. He is one of God's creatures, 
and " his tender mercies are over all his works." 
And yet, though God never lets one of these go 
out of his memory or his care, he holds one 
human soul of more value than many sparrows. 
Yes, you might gather together all the fowls of 



Lect. IX.] THE ANGEL'S ERRAND. 197 

Value of a soul. Powers of the sparrow. 

heaven that ever sang a note, or uttered a 
twitter of joy, — you might bring into one field 
all the animals that ever lived, and into one sea 
all the fish that ever swam, — and one human 
soul w r ould be of more worth than all these ! 

Man is created on a higher scale, a nobler 
being. He was made in the image and likeness 
of God, so that he can think as God thinks, 
reason as God reasons, love as God loves, and 
feel as God feels. 

The little sparrow can utter a few notes of a 
song, a kind of joyous twitter, like a half-sup- 
pressed laugh, without meaning, or tune. She 
can fly to the house-top and poise herself on the 
pinnacle, and, it may be, rise up, like a little 
ship and sail high in the air. She can come 
down and hit and rest on the smallest twig, 
or touch the ground at the very spot she wishes. 
She can build her nest and rear her young 
as her parent did before her. But she cannot 



198 THE ANGEL'S ERRAND. [Lect. IX. 

Cannot think or plan. Storm among mountains. 

contrive or plan or reason. If the worm is not 
created and made ready, if the seed of the plant 
is not laid up in its pod, she must go hungry. 
She makes no improvement in building her nest 
or in defending it. She lays no plans for the 
future, and is not aware to-day, that night or 
storm or winter will ever return. If she has 
what we call thought, how narrow the range ! 
The clear morning may come; the landscape, soft 
as down, and bright as if painted by angels, may 
be spread out before her ; the mountains and 
hills may rejoice, and the trees clap their hands 
for joy, — and yet the little sparrow has no in- 
terest in all this, that calls out admiration. 

Sometimes the traveller among the lofty 
mountains, that shoot up in the wintry sky 
like pinnacles of silver, finds himself and the 
mountains covered with a veil of mist which 
curls and winds and spreads over all that the 
eye can see. But this veil does not extend 



Lect. IX-1 THE ANGEL'S ERRAND. 199 

Description. Shadows. 

all the way up the mountains, for there is soon 
a rent, through which the eye pierces as through 
a window, and then, far, far up the blue sky, he 
sees the turrets of silver throwing down the 
bright beams of the sun, that is cloudless there. 
It is so dark and shadowy where the traveller 
stands, and the light is so intense away up 
through the opening, that it seems as if the 
mountain-tops reached into heaven. He stands 
among dark shadows of wreathing clouds, but 
there is an unearthly brightness up there. The 
mists shift and twist themselves into new shapes, 
but do not shut up the opening. It seems as if 
he could almost see into the 

" House of our Father above, 
The place of angels and of God ! " 

The mountain turrets become pillars of light, 
and look like cylinders of light made solid. It 
carries the mind but a little way further, to that 
city whose gates are pearl, whose walls are 

13 



200 THE ANGEL'S EREAND. [Lect. IX. 

Bright visions. Child in the cradle. 

jasper, whose streets are gold, and whose lofty 
turrets reflect afar off the glory of God and of 
the Lamb ! That city, — the New Jerusalem, — 

" Immovably founded in grace, 
She stands as she ever hath stood, 
And brightly her Builder displays, 
And flames with the glory of God ! " 

Ah, all the sparrows that God hath ever created 
cannot have such visions, or lift up such 
thoughts to the great God ! 

To-day there may sleep in the cradle, the little 
child, who has not yet so much as a name. No- 
body but his family speaks of him or thinks of 
him. And yet, in fifty years from this time, that 
child may be turning his telescope towards the 
stars, and measuring the size and distances of 
the sun and the stars that glitter in the sky. 
He may be able to tell even the weight of 
worlds so distant that it would take ages to fly 
to them. 



Lect. IX.] THE ANGEL'S ERRAND. 201 

What the child may become. Fifty years of life. 

Or he may be able to cross the currents of 
the ocean, and through storms and winds, in 
a path never trodden before, may visit every 
land that is washed by the oceans. 

Or he may plan and rear a building that shall 
stand thousands of years, admired and wondered 
over by every eye that gazes upon it. Such a 
building is St. Paul's Cathedral in London, St. 
Peter's at Rome, and many an old heathen tem- 
ple that has outlived the name of its builder. 

Or he may found a school and endow it, and 
it shall live like a never-failing fountain, and 
send out educated minds down to the end of 
time, and be a blessing to every generation. 

Or he may write a book which shall move 
and mould his own generation, and which shall 
live and be read by men in all countries and 
languages as long as the world shall last. This 
is true of many a poem, and is especially true of 
every book in the Bible. In fifty years, that 



202 THE ANGEL'S ERRAND. [Lect. IX. 

Child and sparrow compared. Sir John Franklin. 

babe may invent something that shall be like 
the railroad or the telegraph, which shall be- 
come the property of the world, carry his name 
over the wide earth, and, what is more and bet- 
ter, become a blessing as wide as the world, and 
as long as time shall last. Truly, we may well 
feel that, in the sight of God, such a child in 
the cradle is of more value than many sparrows ! 

Who can tell how much a single human life 
is worth, even though it be only the short life of 
earth ! How the world has been moved to find 
Sir John Franklin, frozen and perishing far 
up among the eternal ices of the North ! Four 
millions of money have been expended and 
many lives lost in the vain search. Sir John 
was an old man ; but I suppose if it were known 
that he still lives, and his life could be saved and 
he brought back again by a ship loaded with 
gold, it would be raised and sent ! 

But who can begin to tell what a man may 



Lect. IX.] THE AXGEL'S ERRAND. 203 

What a man may become. What is it to do great things ? 

become and do in all the ages of eternity] 
When the nations of the earth have all passed 
away, when time shall come to an end, and 
there shall be no more day or night, no more 
earth or water, no more snn or moon, when 
every grave shall be opened, — then the soul 
has just begun to live. 

Suppose a man could now step out into the 
regions of space, and, by a word, could create 
a new world by his own skill and power ; or, 
suppose he could go to the sun, and stand at 
the gates of light and let out the morning, and 
shut the gates and make the evening ; or sup- 
pose he could speak to the fields, and they 
would yield their increase, and feed all the cattle 
and creatures that live on the face of the earth ; 
— why ! you would say, that man can do great 
things, he has wonderful power ! You would 
like to see the man who had planned and 
reared a new world ; you would like to talk 



204 THE ANGEL'S ERRAND. [Lect. IX. 

Many miracles daily. Two strangers meeting. 

with the man who had travelled to the sun and 
seen the wonders of his burning face ; you 
would like to know the man who could make 
the wheat and the corn and the trees and the 
flowers to grow as he said and chose ; but no 
wise man would exchange what he may he and 
do and enjoy, during the ages of eternity, for 
any such power. The soul has powers yet 
to be brought out. She was made to be like 
God, and to be with him for ever. 

When two men came back to earth and met 
Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration, they 
appeared as they appear in heaven. They wore 
robes of light. But they had been in heaven 
but a few hundred years ; what would they 
not be, when they have been there ages and 
thousands of ages % A man here who has spent 
years in the palaces of kings is supposed to 
be refined and appropriate in behavior. If 
he has spent years with statesmen and great 



Lect. IX.] THE ANGEL'S ERRAND. 205 

Society of heaven. The children present. 

men, he is supposed to have great thoughts and 
wide views. But what would that be, compared 
with living and talking with a man who had 
lived in heaven, — who had talked with Abra- 
ham there, seen Moses and David and Isaiah 
and Paul and the Son of God himself, — who 
had been instructed by the angels of light, and 
seen all the great family of God in heaven ? 
I sometimes am called to speak to a great 
assembly of children. I do not know them by 
name. I never saw them before, and may never 
see them again. But I know that among them 
there will be those who will hereafter be skilful 
mechanics, successful merchants, physicians, law- 
yers, and very likely ministers of the Gospel. 
I cannot tell what great and good men may 
come out of that company. I cannot tell what 
good and noble women will arise from among 
those little girls ; but I know that some of the 
brightest ornaments of earth may be there. 



206 THE ANGEL'S ERRAND. [Lect. IX. 

What they will be. Christ's care. 

I know that there may be those there who will 
be alive after I am dead, and that they may all 
this time be growing good ; and I know, too, 
that each one may become an angel of light, 
and wear a crown of glory brighter than 
any crown that king or queen ever wore on 
earth, — for it is the crown of life ! 

" Ye are of more value than many sparrows." 
Christ only tells us of how little value a spar- 
row is in the estimation of men, in order to 
tell us how God thinks of them, never forget- 
ting one of them a single moment. And he 
tells us this in order to tell us something more, 
and that is, that a human soul is of more value 
than many such creatures. If, then, he never 
forgets one of them, how sure he is not to 
forget creatures made in his own likeness ! 
That poor cripple that cannot walk or move, is 
not so, because God hath overlooked him, but 
because he saw it was for the best. That man 



all 




Lect. IX.] THE ANGEL'S ERRAND. 207 

All are remembered. Little fruit-tree. 

lying on the bed of pain, tossing and racked, 
is not forgotten ; that little child, too feeble to 
walk, so full of disease that he will never see 
another day of health, is not forgotten by his 
Heavenly Father ; that old man, worn out, with 
blinded eyes, and deaf ears, and memory and 
taste gone, trembling and shaking as he tries 
to move, shut away from the world and cut off 
from all enjoyments, is not forgotten by his 
God ! We love children, not because we hope 
they will always be children, but we love them 
for what we hope they will become. We set 
out the little fruit-tree, and watch it and value 
it, not for what it now is, but for what we hope 
it will become. So God values us here, not 
for what we now are, nor for what we can 
now do for him, but for what we may hereafter 
become. He has heard his creation as it groans 
under the curse of sin, but he has sent his Son 
to redeem no part of it but the soul and the 



208 THE ANGEL'S ERRAND. [Lect. IX. 

What to live hereafter. Angels on the star. 

body of man. He has sent his spirit to instruct 
and call and sanctify men, but nothing else. The 
sparrow sings to-day, and dies; but there is 
no hereafter for her. Christ has gone to pre- 
pare a place, — not for the great elephant, the 
useful horse, the knowing dog, or the sweet 
singing-bird, but only for his people. They, 
of all the earth, alone will live with him for 
ever. 

Suppose that on one of those far distant stars 
that just twinkle, in the arch of heaven, — 
a thousand times farther off than our sun, — 
two angels should meet in their long flight. 
They meet with faces lighted up with joy and 
love. 

" Where hast thou been ? " says one. 

" Do you see that little star," says he, " that 
hangs low, as if about to set ? " 

" Yes, I see it ; it must be a great way off ! " 

" True ; but I have been there on an errand 



Lect. IX.] THE ANGEL'S ERRAND. 209 



Their dialogue. The angel's errand. 

of goodness from the great Parent of all, and 
my errand has caused that world to thrill with 
joy. Where hast thou been, with thy wings 
soiled, and with a look of almost weariness 
on thy face ? " 

" Hast thou ever heard of a world called 
Earth ? " 

" Yes, often. It is the world where the cross 
was raised, and where the God-Man died to 
redeem. I have seen many who have come 
from that world, and I have heard them sing 
and mingle with the white-robed sons of light ! 
None seem to be so full of joy as they. How 
long hast thou been on the earth ] " 

" About fifty of their years ; but that is noth- 
ing, as we reckon in heaven ! " 

" What was thy errand % " 

" A little child, frail as a flower, was commit- 
ted to me on its creation, fifty years ago. I was 
to guard it, to bear it up in my arms, to keep it, 



210 THE ANGEL'S ERRAND. [Lect. IX. 

What he did on earth Watching the child. 

to shield it, and to do all I could to fit it for 
heaven. When it was held in the arms at the 
baptismal font, I was there. When it went into 
the Sabbath School, I went with it. When 
it first lisped the name of God in prayer, I 
knelt down with it by the side of its little bed. 
When it became a youth, I kept with it, and 
often whispered to the conscience, and calmed the 
passions, and drew him back from harm. When 
he became a young man, and had launched his 
boat upon the ocean of life, I still went with him. 
When he sinned, I grieved and covered my face. 
When the time came that he was visited by the 
Holy Spirit, and the question was to be decided 
whether he should live to eternity in heaven 
or in hell, I hung round him with an anxiety 
which I cannot describe. And when I saw the 
first tear of penitence, and saw hope entering his 
heart, I hastened back to heaven and carried the 
tidings that another soul had received the offers 



Leot. IX.] THE ANGEL'S ERRAND. 211 

What the sower has done. End of earth. 

of life, and I could not but shout with them, as 
I united in the joy of the angels in the presence 
of God over this sinner who had repented ! 
I went back again to my charge on the wing of 
gladness, to minister to one who, as I knew, 
would be an heir of salvation. He has been 
struggling with temptations, overcoming sins, 
fighting against principalities and powers and 
spiritual wickedness in high places ; he has 
been sowing seed which will bear fruit on earth 
as long as that world lives ; he has been kindling 
up little fires, which will burn and give out 
warmth and light for ages to come ; he has 
engraven the name of Christ on many a heart 
that is left there, and his influence will be such, 
that, though dead, he shall yet speak ! He has 
finished his course, and I am now, as you see, 
leading him up to his eternal home ! " 

" Methinks he looks feeble, and like a stran- 
ger ! " 



212 THE ANGEL'S ERRAND. [Lect. IX. 

The future of the good man. 

" Yes, but remember that he has been created 
but fifty of the little years of earth, that he has 
toiled in a body, and in a world of sin and of 
temptation, and is but just emerged from the 
house of clay, and the dark prison of earth. 
But in a little while, I shall place him at the 
feet of the Lamb ; I shall see him fall down in 
unutterable joy, and cry, " Thou art worthy." 
I shall see him clothed in white, with a crown 
of life on his head, and a harp of gold in his 
hand, — I shall see him passing on in the ages 
of eternity with no look of earth about him, 
except his gratitude and love and glorified body, 
and I shall see him become an angel, and I shall 
fully understand the words uttered on earth by 
the great Redeemer, when he said to his friends, 
" Ye are of more value than many sparrows ! ' 



LECTURE X. 

GOD REJOICING. 

The Lord shall rejoice in his works. — Ps. civ. 31. 

Contents. — Much in little. Child's arithmetic. New watch. The flow- 
er. Sea-shells. Why so beautiful? Flower of the mountain. Mottled 
fish. Mountain eagle. The horse of the prairie. God's great works. 
The river of Egypt. Bruce, the traveller. The head of the Nile. Per- 
fected works, — rainbow, — early morning, — ocean, — forest-trees. The 
cradle, — child, — the man, — old man, — glorified man. The mechanic 
and his works. Christ's work. The "Morning Star." Her mission. 
Morning stars in heaven. Works over which Christ will rejoice. The 
mother's joy, — the pastor's, — the missionary's. God's joy for ever. 

The Bible puts a great deal of meaning in 
a few words. A long sermon may be made 
on a short text, and yet much meaning in the 
text may be left out. Sometimes we meet with 
a new picture hanging up in the shop windows, 
and we have to stop and study it a long time, 
to see if we understand it. Sometimes it takes 
long and hard study to understand a very small 



214 GOD EEJOICING. [Lect. X. 

Child's arithmetic. New watch. The flower. 

book. The child may take up a little arith- 
metic, and it seems a small affair ; but it takes 
him long days of hard study before he can 
understand it. He might take a bright new 
watch in his hand, and perhaps be able to tell 
the time of day by looking at the little moving 
hands ; but it would take him a long time 
so to understand the watch that he could take 
out all the little wheels, and then put them back 
again, and have them all right. Some watches 
not only tell the hour and minute of time, but 
the year, the month, the day of the month, 
the day of the week, and the like. What a 
study would it be to be able to take such a 
watch to pieces and put it together again ! 
Still more, to be able to make such a curious 
thing ! 

"We might pluck a flower, and at a glance 
tell its name, the month of its blooming, the 
color of its leaves, and the shape of its stalk ; 



Lect. X.] GOD REJOICING. 215 

Sea-shells. 

but how long would it take us to be able to 
tell how the juices are drawn up from the 
ground, what makes it grow, what gives its 
color, what determines its shape, and how it 
has life ! So we read over a short text and 
think we understand it ; but the more we think 
it over, the more we find in it. I have been 
trying to understand the words of our text. 
I think I do in a degree ; but not fully, I 
fear. 

Those who live by the sea-side, often find 
that, after a great storm, there are a multitude 
of little shells washed up from the bottom of 
the sea, which was their home. Some of these 
are like gold ; some like silver ; some spotted 
or mottled ; some are pink ; some green ; some 
look as if the rays of the setting sun had fallen 
on them, and painted them so beautiful ; and 
awav down in the ocean are millions of such, 
mingled with pearls and coral, — and all as 

14 



216 GOD REJOICING. [Lect. X. 

Why so beautiful ? Flower of the mountain. 

beautiful as possible. Why are they made so 
beautiful ? What eye ever sees or admires 
them \ The fish that swim over them cannot 
admire them ; and men cannot go down and 
walk along on the bottom of the ocean and see 
these beautiful things. Who can % God can ! 
His mind planned every one, — his hand formed 
every one, — his skill painted every one. Every 
day, we are told, -after creating new things, God 
looked upon what he had made, and saw that it 
all was very good. So he walks down in the 
solitudes of the ocean, and sees the gems and 
the pearls and all the beautiful things there, 
and rejoices over his works ! Why should he 
not % They are the creations of infinite wisdom. 
Sometimes we climb up a steep mountain- 
side, and when we have got far up, beyond 
where the trees grow,, and above where the 
bushes grow, we come to a steep rock up which 
we cannot climb, — and there, far up on a shelf 



Lect. X.] GOD REJOICING. 217 

Mottled fish. Mountain eagle. 

of that steep rock, hangs a little, beautiful 
flower. All the skill of earth could not make 
one like it. It hangs and waves there alone, 
bending its head to the winds, and pouring its 
sweetness on the air. Whose eye will see it ? 
Did an angel ever pause and fold up his wings 
on that shelf of the rock, to admire that little 
flower, and praise its Maker ? We do not 
know ! But we do know that God has been 
there and seen it and taken care of it, — wash- 
ing its face in the dews of the night, and 
warming it with the sunbeams of the day ! We 
know that he sees the beautiful mottled fish 
that leaps up in the dark river of the forest, and 
thus mutely praises his name. No human eye 
can see the wild eagle of the mountain, as he 
first leaps from the tree, and with new wings 
mounts up towards heaven ; but He who gave 
that eagle his keen eye and his strong wing, and 
who painted every feather on his breast, is there, 



218 GOD REJOICING. [Lect. X. 

The horse of the prairie. God's great works. 

to rejoice over his works. "When the lithe 
horse of the prairie bounds forward in his joy 
and gladness, snuffing the morning air without 
fear or restraint, there is no one there to see and 
admire his beautiful form and free movements ; 
but God, his Maker is there, and he rejoices 
over his works. Anything that is worthy of 
his hand in its creation, is worthy of his regard 
when made. And it is not over his great 
works, — such as the ocean that rolls and foams 
and dashes and grinds the rocks and beats 
against the cliffs, — it is not over the great 
volcano that comes surging and rolling up from 
the inside of the earth till it has made a moun- 
tain of cinders and a great river of liquid fire, — 
it is not over the high mountain, whose top 
reaches far up where nothing but eternal snow 
and ice are, — it is not over the great sun that 
hangs in the heavens, and shines on in his 
strength from age to age, — that God rejoices 



Lect. X.J GOD REJOICING. 219 

The river of Egypt. 

merely ; but he looks at every little flower that 
opens, at every little leaf that shakes in the 
wind, at every feather that covers the little bird 
of the air, and over them all he rejoices, for 
they are his work, and worthy of the Divine 
hand. 

Children, you have all heard and read of 
Egypt. It is a wonderful country. There is no 
rain there, and yet the land is watered and very 
fertile. It is all done so fully, that of old it 
has been a land of plenty, and the great grain- 
house from which the old Roman empire used 
to draw its bread. And the whole land is 
watered and made fruitful by one single river ! 
Take that away, and it would at once be only a 
dreary sand-heap. Every spring, that river rises 
up and overflows its banks, and then the people 
have their little canals dug and ready, and their 
little dams built to catch and save the water, 
and then they go out and sow their rice on the 



220 GOD REJOICING. [Lect. X. 

Bruce, the traveller. , Head of the Nile. 

waters. The rice sinks down, and the waters 
after a while dry up, and the rice grows, and 
they have a great harvest. Thus they " cast 
their bread upon the waters, and find it again 
after many days." For a great while it was a 
matter of wonder what made the river rise so 
and overflow its banks. At last a man by the 
name of Bruce followed the river up till he got 
far up among the high mountains, nearly a thou- 
sand miles from the mouth of the river, where 
he found that these great mountains were cov- 
ered with snow. It is the melting of this snow 
in the spring, that makes the river rise so high. 
Up, far up among the hills and the lofty places 
he went, till he came to a little pond or spring. 
It was the very fountain and head-water of the 
Nile ! How he sat down and rejoiced over his 
toil, and how he looked at that little fountain ! 
It was the beginning of great things. Now are 
we not to believe that, for thousands of years 



Lect. X.] GOD REJOICING. 221 

Perfected works. Rainbow. Early morning. 

before the foot of man ever trod those regions, 
and before Bruce ever saw it, the eye of God 
was watching that little fountain, as it poured 
out its waters and sent them down to make the 
Nile and to fertilize the whole of Egypt ? Are 
we not to believe that the Lord rejoiced over 
this wonderful work of his, when for the first 
time the gushing stream found its new channel, 
and marked out the line of its march from the 
heights of the mountain to the great sea ] 

Some of the works of the Lord are perfect, 
and will never be improved in the future. The 
rainbow that hangs on the skirts of the storm, 
and seems the child of the thunder and the rain, 
will never be more beautiful than it now is. 
The dawn of the morning, when the stars first be- 
gin to turn pale and twinkle farther off, and the 
rays of red and yellow shoot up from the east, 
as heralds, to tell us that the monarch of the 
day has mounted his car and will soon be here, 



222 GOD REJOICING. [Lect. X. 

Ocean. Forest-trees. The cradle. 

— calling the hill-tops to catch their first smiles, 
and waking up the birds of the air to song and 
joy, — that dawn will never be more perfect 
than it now is ! The roar of the old ocean 
will never, in beauty or terror, be otherwise 
than it now is. The deep forest, that stands, 
like a tall army, still and silent and solemn, as if 
listening to receive some command that will 
make all the trees bend like reeds, will never 
be changed. The Lord rejoices over all these 
works, as being perfect and complete. 

But when he comes and stands at the head of 
the little cradle, he is looking at something that 
will grow for ever. The babe is perfect now ! 
Its little limbs, its bright eye, its dimpled smile, 
its silky hair, its smooth brow, — they are all 
beautiful now ! But when those feet can walk, 
and when those hands can reach out and do 
good, when that eye can melt in pity for distress, 
and when that tongue can sing the praises 



Lect. X.] GOD EEJOICING. 223 

Child. The man. Old man. The glorified man. 

of God, and call upon him in prayer, the child 
has gone up to a higher state. A few years 
later, when that child has become a man, and is 
now seen supporting the feeble steps of his 
worn-out mother, bearing the burdens of his 
feeble father, the pillar of confidence to his 
sisters, and a blessing to all, he has gone up 
to a higher character still. And when, after 
years of faithful duty and labor and toil, that 
child has become the hoary-headed old man, 
worn out in the service of God, ready to leave 
the world and go up to meet his Saviour, he is 
nobler still ! But when he shall reach heaven, 
his work done here, — when he shall leave all 
sin and sorrow behind, and go up in the white 
robe of Christ's righteousness, — when he shall 
come to the Redeemer full of awe and won- 
der, and love and admiration, with his crown of 
life and his song of praise, will it not then be, 
that the Lord will rejoice over his work? Other 



224 GOD REJOICING. [Lect. X. 

The mechanic and his works. Christ's work. 

things may show that God has given them 
graceful forms, or brilliant colors, or keen in- 
stincts, or great proportions ; but the beauty of 
the good man is the " beauty of the Lord," — 
the beauty of holiness ! 

Suppose you know a man who can pick up a 
piece of charcoal, and from it make the most 
beautiful diamond that ever flashed ; or that can 
take the common shell of an oyster, and from it 
make the most perfect pearl that ever graced the 
neck of queens ; — would he not be a wonderful 
mechanic] And suppose he could dig down 
into the dark mines of ore and take out a lump, 
dark and cold and ill-shaped, and from it create 
a spirit that will live for ever ! Would not that 
man rejoice over his work] 

But the Son of God hath done more than to 
do all that. He has come here and taken vile 
men, such as heathen, such as thieves and 
murderers, and made them become like the 



Lect. X.] GOD REJOICING. 225 

The Morning Star. Her mission. 

angels of heaven ! And he is doing it every 
day, and will do it more and more, till the world 
shall come to an end. 

When a missionary ship was wanted, all the 
children of our country sent in their contribu- 
tions, and the trees were cut down and hewed, 
and the planks were sawed, and the masts were 
rigged, and the sails were added, till the beauti- 
ful ship — the " Morning Star " — was finished. 
She had no great cannon on board with which 
to destroy, she had no swords nor guns ; but 
she w T as made for one single, noble purpose, — 
to aid in making Christ known among the 
heathen ! And when she was done, what a 
multitude of children came together to see her 
launched into the water ! — and beautiful pic- 
tures of her are made and sent everywhere. 
She went to the Sandwich Islands, and there 
a multitude of children gathered together to 
see her ! How the children all rejoiced over 



226 GOD REJOICING. [Lect. X. 

Her mission. Morning stars in heaven. 

their work ! — because she will last a long time, 
and go to many a dark island, and cheer many 
a weary missionary ; and many lonely workers 
will shed tears of joy while they see the little 
ship coming in with the white flag at mast- 
head, with the name Morning Star upon it ! 
They talk about her here in this country, they 
talk about her in Europe, and they talk about 
her in the far-off islands. She is the work of 
children, and they rejoice over their work. And 
I doubt not she will be talked about in heaven, 
and long after she is worn out, and perhaps 
sunk in the ocean, her name will live and be 
remembered ! But oh ! the work of Christ ! 
How many morning stars will he make to rise 
into view in heaven ! "To him that overcome th 
will I give the morning star ! " that is, I will 
make him bright as the morning star. These 
stars will never set. These will never go out. 
They will come from the east and the west, the 



Lect. X.] GOD REJOICING. 227 

"Works over which Christ will rejoice. The mother's joy. 

north and the south, and shine for ever and ever. 
Am I not now looking upon some whom Christ 
will make into morning stars \ Will not this 
little boy, and that little girl, be there, redeemed 
and glorified, to shine as the stars for ever and 
ever 1 

Ah ! when all this work of redemption shall 
be completed, — when they shall be gathered 
together, a multitude which no man can num- 
ber, each with a crown of life on his head, 
each with the robe of white as his clothing, 
each with a golden harp in his hand, each one 
to live and be blessed for ever, — what a multi- 
tude will they be ! And as each one comes to 
the feet of Christ, to cast his crown there, 
will He not rejoice over his works ? Does the 
mother who has prayed for the conversion of 
her child, from the very first moment her heart 
thrilled at the sound of its voice, rejoice when 
that child is converted and brought into the fold 



228 GOD REJOICING. [Lect. X. 

The pastor's joy. The missionary's joy. God's joy for ever. 

of Jesus ? Does the minister of Christ, who 
has gone forth bearing the precious seed with 
weeping, rejoice when the Holy Spirit comes 
down, and his flock are brought to Christ] Does 
the missionary of the cross, who leaves his 
country to toil and die in foreign lands, rejoice 
when he sees new-born souls, from among the 
poor, darkened pagans, coming and sitting at 
the foot of the cross, and singing to the name 
of Jesus ? What, then, will be the joy which 
fills the heart of God himself for ever 1 These 
are his work ! O, he will burn up gold and 
silver and jewels and precious stones, — he will 
burn up the earth ; but he will save souls, and 
rejoice in his works for ever and ever ! 



LECTURE XI. 

THE OLDEST RIDDLE. 

Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came 
forth sweetness. — Judges xiv. 14. 

Contents. — What a riddle is. Ancient riddles. Parables. JE sop's fables. 
Children's poems. Men of the Bible. Samson, — the man who was a 
whole army. His wedding. The young lion. The lion a beehive. A 
wonder. Doctrine. The babe. Parents' joy. The child's will. The 
lame one. The little cripple. God's lesson. The child's will again. The 
temper altered. Text illustrated. Deaf and dumb child. Her mission. 
Sorrows on the sea. Causes of distress. The mountain stage. Young 
officer. Maps of the ocean. The great results. Cowper. Beautiful 
eulogy on the pulpit. Hymns. John Milton. His lament over his blind- 
ness. Text illustrated. The greatest calamity ever known. Effects of 
sin. Eesults of it. What it teaches. The heaven of the redeemed. 
What Christ will do. 

Children, this is the oldest riddle in the 
world. A riddle is some truth or thought put 
into language which would seem to mean some- 
thing else, and whose real meaning is to be 
guessed. In ancient times they had very few 



232 THE OLDEST RIDDLE. [Lect. XL 

Ancient riddles. Parables. iEsop's fables. 

books, because men did not know how to print ; 
and, indeed, they had no books except such as 
were written with the pen. And so they used to 
teach one another in riddles, songs, parables, and 
proverbs. Moses wrote his farewell address, 
just before he died, in the form of a song, 
so that his people might commit it to memory, 
and perhaps sing it. Deborah, a prophetess, 
wrote a song describing a victory which her 
people had gained, and which song was to 
be committed to memory. Solomon gathered up 
all the wisdom of his age into proverbs, because 
these could be easily remembered and handed 
down in families. Parables are a kind of riddle, 
and were used to engage the attention and excite 
curiosity. The parables of Christ are the most 
beautiful in the world. Fables are another kind 
of riddle. There was once a Grecian slave, 
named iEsop, who made many choice fables; 
but the many fables which have come down 



Lect. XL] THE OLDEST RIDDLE. 233 

Children's poems. Men of the Bible. 

to us as his, are probably a collection of all the 
old fables that had been gathered, down to his 
time. To guess the meaning of riddles has 
always been the delight of children, and of 
people who have but few books. Such people, 
too, delight in songs and short stories. Some of 
the most bewitching reading for children is little 
stories put into poetry ; and who does not know 
how eagerly they read the fables in which birds 
talk, apes reason, and squirrels gather together 
into a congress ? 

In the Bible we are taught that God can 
do great things, not only by weak instruments, 
but by very imperfect men. All the great and 
good men have had some defects, to show us, that 
God can use such poor creatures to promote 
his own glory. The Bible is very careful not 
to cover up their sins. Some of them were 
more perfect than others. Samson, who made 
the riddle which I have chosen for my text, was 

15 



234 THE OLDEST RIDDLE. [Lect. XI. 



Samson. One man a whole army. His wedding. 

a judge, or deliverer, in Israel. For twenty 
years he was the chief magistrate. The nation 
who were then troubling the people of God 
were the Philistines, — a strong, warlike people, 
who always hated Israel. They would come, 
sometimes in little bands, and steal the cattle, 
and sometimes with an army, and burn up 
towns. Samson was himself the army to op- 
pose them ; and God showed that he could, if 
he pleased, put a whole army into one man. In 
one battle he killed more than two armies often 
do in a battle And what was equally strange, 
he did it all without arms, — by picking up 
a stick, or such a small thing as the jaw-bone of 
an ass ! 

Samson was raised up to destroy the Philis- 
tines, and, strange as it may seem, he married one 
of that people in order to do it. At his wed- 
ding, according to custom, he put forth a riddle 
to the company. It seems that, on his way to 



Lect. XL] THE OLDEST RIDDLE. 235 

The young lion. The lion a beehive ! 

see the lady of his choice, with his parents, 
he turned aside into a vineyard, — most likely to 
gather some grapes. Here a young, fierce lion 
sprang upon him ; but in a moment, unarmed as 
he was, he crushed the cruel beast. He was not 
hurt, nor were his garments torn so as to have 
his parents notice it, and he told nobody of it. 
Perhaps he felt that nobody would believe the 
story. There he left the lion dead. 

When he went down to be married, he went 
to the vineyard again to see his lion, and the 
birds or the beasts had eaten the flesh, and the 
hot sun had dried the carcass, and the bees had 
come and made a hive of it, and filled it with 
honey. Of this honey Samson gathered and 
gave to his parents. So that " out of the eater," 
which was the lion, " came forth meat," or food, 
" and out of the strong " creature " came forth 
sweetness," i. e. honey. 

This was the riddle. The people could not 



236 THE OLDEST RIDDLE. [Lect. XI. 

A wonder. Doctrine. The babe. 

guess it; for who would have thought the 
sweetest food in the world, and the highest 
luxury in the world, could have come out of the 
carcass of a dead lion ? A starving man might 
eat a piece of a lion, but who else ever ate it ? 
And who ever went to the carcass of such 
a beast for food, and, above all, for sweet- 
ness itself 1 Few things could be more loath- 
some, few places so unlikely to give out anything 
pleasant. 

Our text teaches us this general truth, — that 
God can turn into a Messing, what seems un- 
pleasant and hurtful. 

It is this truth I am now wishing to illus- 
trate. 

In the bosom of a quiet, Christian family, 
God has created a little boy. He intends to 
make an angel of that child in the end. The 
parents receive him with unutterable joy. He 
comes as a bright sunbeam into their dwelling, 



Lect. XL] THE OLDEST RIDDLE. 237 

Parents' joy. The child's will. 

and brings joy and gladness. They give him 
the most unwearied care, and think over, and 
dream over, what he will hereafter be. The 
door is opened and shut softly lest it awake him. 
The air is not allowed to fan his face, and 
the light is screened from his newly-opened eyes. 
They plan how he will live long, how they will 
train him, how he will become a great and a 
good man. They trust his guardian angel will 
never forget him for a moment. As he advances, 
it is found that the child is uncommonly bright, 
and his large, laughing, black eye seems to talk 
before he can speak with the tongue. He seems 
a wonder to his parents, though his mother 
secretly and reluctantly comes to the conclusion 
that he has a very stubborn will Before he 
is two years old, she has tried hard to conquer 
that will, and has tried to convince herself that 
she has, though secretly she knows she never 
has ; and God sees that this will is likely to be 



238 THE OLDEST KIDDLE. [Lect. XI. 

The lame one. The little cripple. 

liis ruin for time and for eternity. When two 
or three years old, the mother hears the child cry 
out as if in pain. She hastens into the other 
room where he is playing, and finds him lying 
on the floor. She raises him up, but his legs 
have lost their power. He cannot walk ; he 
cannot stand. She searches to see if he has 
hurt him, — if any bone is broken. But no ; 
there is nothing to be found. It seems as if the 
angel who held him up, had suddenly let him 
fall. How the mother now clasps him in her 
arms with new tenderness ! He was never so 
dear to her before * Her little lame boy ! Will 
he never walk again ] How the child wonders 
over the tears that run down his mother's 
cheeks ! How the father hurries, with a world 
of troubled thoughts in his head, to the physi- 
cian, and asks him to aid them ! How tenderly 
they wrap up the little fellow in blanket and 
shawl, and carry him from one skilful physician 



Lect. XL] THE OLDEST RIDDLE. 239 

God's lesson. The child's will again. 

to another ! All in vain ! Their little boy will 
never be otherwise than a cripple. And then 
the little chair is bought, and the little red 
crutches are bought, and around the little one 
the family all gather with a tenderness never felt 
before. And now this messenger of God begins 
to tell his errand ! I mean, that, while the eye 
of the little boy is opened as wide as ever, and 
shines as brightly as ever, it is found that his help- 
lessness has made him mild. He has a tender- 
ness towards his mother such as he never had 
before. He says his evening prayer as if he felt 
his need of God's care. It is seen that his anger 
is less frequent, and when the waters of the lake 
are ruffled, they soon become calm and placid. 
That will becomes subdued ; and while the poor 
cripple cannot move except by help, and while 
his mother often sheds tears to see him leaning 
on his little crutches and quietly watching the 
other children at their play, yet she knows he is 



240 THE OLDEST RIDDLE. [Lect. XL 

The temper altered. The text illustrated. 

becoming more gentle, winning, and loving in his 
manners and feelings and character. His body 
will always be feeble, but the soul grows large 
and noble and beautiful. By his feebleness and 
helplessness he escapes many dangers. He is 
the centre of all the family, and every child in 
it learns to be kind and gentle, both because he 
is gentle and kind, and also because they want 
to be gentle and kind to him ; and thus, he helps 
to form the character of all in the house, and of 
all who ever know him. Thus he becomes the 
beautiful character that all love, and kindly is 
he handed along the journey of life, till God's 
plans are fulfilled. Then, when it is all over, 
and he is removed to that world where there 
will be no lame or feeble one, where " the weak 
shall be as David, and David as an angel of God," 
— then it is seen that this lameness was turned 
into a great blessing ; so that out of the eater 
came forth meat, and out of the strong came 
forth sweetness. 




■^t^s^ 



Lect. XL] THE OLDEST EIDDLE. 241 

The deaf and dumb child. Her mission. 

I have told you lately, children, of a little 
girl, so bright, so beautiful, and so loving, that 
her father daily pressed her to his heart with 
the greatest tenderness. And she could not 
speak a word or hear a word. She was deaf 
and dumb. The soul w r as not encased in marble, 
but it was not much easier to reach it than if 
it had been. She died a mere child. And it 
all seemed a deep mystery. How many hours 
the mother sat over her speechless one, won- 
dering at the strange, mysterious providence ! 
How often the tear dropped from the father's 
eye, as he gazed upon his child, who had no 
words to welcome his presence ! It seemed 
a sad and most unpleasant event. But when 
the child had completed her mission as she 
has, it is now seen what that mission was. 
Out of the life of that little girl grew up all 
the Asylums for the Deaf and Dumb which 
bless our land. Out of the eater came forth 



242 THE OLDEST KIDDLE. [Lect. XI. 

Sorrows on the sea. Causes of distress. 

meat, and out of the strong came forth sweet- 
ness. 

Some who go down into ships, and do busi- 
ness on the great waters, know that the Prophet 
speaks the truth when he says, " there is sorrow 
on the sea." The sea roars and the fulness 
thereof. When the compass was discovered, 
so that ships could go out of sight of land, 
there w^as a great thing gained, When men 
built large and strong ships, it was still a great 
gain. But still there are so many currents in 
the great ocean, so many winds blowing, that 
voyages were long, tedious, and dangerous. 
The ship full of emigrants was tossed and 
driven about by currents of water and of wind ; 
and the sick, on shipboard, going to milder 
climates, were made sicker by the long voyage, 
and a great amount of time and money was 
spent in sailing a ship from one part of the 
world to another. The whole world felt the 



Lect. XL] THE OLDEST RIDDLE. 243 

The mountain stage. Young officer. 

evils, in the loss of property and health and 
lives. "What should be done \ 

Some years ago the stage was going over our 
high Alleghany Mountains. The roads were 
bad and dangerous. When near the top of the 
mountain, the stage was suddenly overturned, 
and the passengers hurt, more or less. How- 
ever, they all passed on except one. He was 
a young naval officer, about whom there was 
nothing very striking or remarkable. With a 
broken thigh he was carried into a « log-cabin, 
and there left to such care and skill as that 
wild region afforded. It seemed to him the 
saddest day of his life ; and as he lay under 
the low roof of the hut, with not a friend near, 
his limb broken, and in agony, it seemed to him 
that all his prospects for life were dashed. He 
would be a cripple, and never able to walk the 
deck of his ship again ! For six months he lay 
there alone. But now came the meat out of 



244 THE OLDEST RIDDLE. [Lect. XI. 

Maps of the ocean. The great results. 

the eater, and the sweetness out of the strong 
one. He there discovered that he had powers 
which he never dreamed of before. He there 
began those studies, and there formed those 
habits of thought, that have since enabled him 
to make maps of the ocean, in which the great 
currents of water and of wind are laid down, so 
that dangers are shunned, stormy places avoided, 
and paths marked out ; so that every voyage is 
shortened, so that every ship that sails is safer, 
so that less property is lost, so that fewer ships 
are wrecked, so that fewer lives are lost. If 
this man could have given the world millions 
of money every year, if he could have gathered 
up from the bottom of the ocean the little 
children that sleep there, or the fathers and 
brothers and husbands who are buried there, 
and carried them to their friends, and thus 
sent joy through hundreds of homes every year, 
he could not have been a greater blessing to 



Lect. XL] THE OLDEST RIDDLE. 245 

Cowper. Eulogy on the pulpit. 

the world than he now is. His name will 
stand among the most useful men the world 
has ever seen. Then I would add, that he is 
a Christian, and, while kings and crowned heads 
do him homage, he feels that his highest honor 
is to lay all that he has, and is, at the feet of 
his Redeemer. We trace all this good back to 
the upsetting of the stage on the mountains, 
and his broken limb and solitary confinement 
in the log-house. 

"William Cowper ! Probably thousands of 
souls have been saved by his beautiful tribute 
to the Pulpit. 

" The Pulpit therefore (and I name it filled 
With solemn awe, that bids me well beware 
With what intent I touch that holy thing), — 
The Pulpit (when the satirist has at last, 
Strutting and vaporing in an empty school, 
Spent all his force, and made no proselyte), — 
I say the Pulpit (in the sober use 
Of its legitimate, peculiar powers) 
Must stand acknowledged, while the world shall stand, 



246 THE OLDEST RIDDLE. [Lect. XI. 

Eulogy on the pulpit. Hymns. 

The most important and effectual guard, 

Support, and ornament of Virtue's cause. 

There stands the messenger of truth ; there stands 

The legate of the skies ! His theme divine, 

His office sacred, his credentials clear. 

By him the violated law speaks out 

Its thunders ; and by him, in strains as sweet 

As angels use, the Gospel whispers peace. 

He 'stablishes the strong, restores the weak, 

Reclaims the wanderer, binds the broken heart, 

And, armed himself in panoply complete 

Of heavenly temper, furnishes with arms 

Bright as his own, and trains by every rule 

Of holy discipline, to glorious war, 

The sacramental host of God's elect ! " 

This is the same broken-hearted man whom 
thousands have followed as they sang, — 

" O for a closer walk with God, 
A calm and peaceful frame, 
And light to shine upon the road 
That leads me to the Lamb ! " 

And yet the sweet hymns of Cowper were 
all wrung out of him by anguish of spirit. 
They are the perfume of the crushed flower, — 



, Lect. xi.j the oldest eiddle. 247 

John Milton. His lament over his blindness. 

sweeter for being crushed. They are the sighs 
and the palpitations of a broken heart; and 
while the poor poet was himself tossed on the 
stormy waves, he was building life-boats for 
others. 

And John Milton ! With what touching 
words does he speak of his blindness ! It 
almost makes you weep to hear him lament his 
loss. 

" Seasons return, but not to me returns 
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, 
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, 
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine ; 
But cloud instead, and ever during dark 
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men 
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair 
Presented with a universal blank 
Of nature's works to me expunged and rased, 
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out." 

But when God closed up his eyes in blindness, 
he opened wide the eyes of the soul, and from 
the chambers of that soul came the greatest 



248 THE OLDEST EIDDLE. [Lect. XI. 

Text illustrated. Greatest calamity known. 

poem in human language ! How little did it 
seem as if to put out the eyes of a man was 
the way to make him see, — to cut a man off 
from the world, and shut up his soul in a dark 
dungeon, was the way to make him sing like 
the angels of heaven! Out of the eater came 
forth meat, and out of the strong came forth 
sweetness ! God can turn the very trials of 
men into blessings. 

The greatest calamity ever made known to 
men is the ruin of our world by sin. It is said 
that not a spot on earth can be found, big 
enough for a flower-bed, which has not already 
been dug up to make graves of. You remember 
how, when the angel smote the first-born in 
Egypt at midnight, the cry went up loud to 
heaven, because there was not a house in which 
was not one or more dead ! What was true of 
Egypt, is true of every house on earth. The 
angel does not smite all in one night, but sooner 



Lect. XL] THE OLDEST RIDDLE. 249 

Effects of sin. Results of it. 

or later every house is smitten, and every child 
that is born must die. How awful do our 
dearest friends look when they are dying ! Sin 
dug all these graves. Sin slew all these. And 
oh ! what wars, and murders, and cruelties, 
what prisons and dungeons, and what tears and 
sorrows, fill the earth ! It is all dreadful. But 
out of this eater comes forth meat. If sin had 
not been permitted to come and destroy our 
world, we could never have known how much 
God loved it, — to send his only begotten Son 
to die to redeem it. We could never have 
known how much Christ pitied us, to be will- 
ing to hang in the agonies of the cross to 
redeem us ! We could never have known how 
much the Spirit of God loves us, to intercede 
for us, to come and plead with us, to make us 
like Christ in holiness for ever ! We should 
never have known what the word mercy means. 
We should never have known that the holy 

16 



250 THE OLDEST EIDDLE. [Lect. XL 

What it teaches. The heaven of the redeemed. 

angels loved us so that they would be willing 
to be ministering spirits to men, and even carry 
the soul of a poor beggar to heaven. We 
should never have known that there could be 
a Gospel so precious to the lost sinner, nor 
what the tears of the contrite sinner meant. 
But now we sing, O the height and the depth, 
the length and the breadth, of the love of God 
in Christ Jesus ! Now a multitude which no 
man can number will reach heaven. They will 
all have on white robes. They will all have a 
crown of life on the head. They will each have 
a golden harp. They will sing a new song, — 
one never heard in heaven before, — the song of 
Moses and of the Lamb. God is seen by the 
redeemed to be such a father as no other world 
can see. Ah ! he can take the thief and carry 
him up, purified, to the paradise of God. He 
can take the very heathen, and make them his 
reward, his jewels, and his glory. And oh ! 



Lect. XL] THE OLDEST RIDDLE. 251 



What Christ will do. 



Christ can take the very babe, and ont of his lips 
perfect the praises of God. Death and the 
grave are the eater, but out of them shall 
come forth what is more precious than gold, 
and what is brighter than diamonds. Sin is 
the strong one, but out of him shall come forth 
what is sweeter than honey, — the souls of the 
redeemed. 



LECTURE XII. 

THE GKEAT CHANGE. 

We shall all be changed. — 1 Cor. xv. 51. 

Contents. — The boy's wish. Spring. Little girl's wish. Men desire 
changes. Changes to all. The old man. His sad experience. No sun- 
shine. The bird's egg. The journey. Departure. The return. Two 
great changes. What death is. Little Emma Clapp. Conversation with 
her. Emma's experience. The baptism. Her sick-room. Her anxieties. 
Fearless. Perfected praises. Farewells. Her messages. Shutting of the 
lily. Great change in Emma. What became of her ? Contrasts. The 
coffin-dress. The last change. Christ's coming. The trumpet's voice. 
Graves opened. How the wicked forgotten in death. The most precious 
thing on earth. The blind eyes opened. No sickness. Surgeon's knife. 
The pond-lily. The diamond. Stephen's burial. The eggs of the silk- 
worm and the staves. The rag-picker. Eternal change. 

Was there ever a little boy who did not, in 
the warm, beautiful summer, wish that the fall 
would come, when the fruits would all be ripe, 
when the squirrel would jump and chatter in 
the tree, as he laid up food for the coming 
winter 1 When the fall has come, does not this 
same boy wish for the winter, when the smooth 
ice will seem to chirp under his skates, when 



Lect. XIL] THE GREAT CHANGE. 253 

Spring. Little girl's wish. Men desire changes. 

the white snow will call for his sled, and when 
the cold winds will freshen up his cheeks, 
and make him feel strong, and make him shout 
with the shouters? And when the winter is 
come, how he longs for the spring, when the 
grass will grow green, and the flowers burst 
their buds and bloom out, — when the birds will 
return, and the trees will rustle with new leaves, 
and the whole world seem to rejoice 1 So the 
boy loves change. 

Was there ever a little girl who did not long 
to exchange her old doll for a new one, to take 
the promised new dress in her hand, to make 
the visit away off, where she must ride, and see 
new things, and to get hold of the new book 
which she has heard so much about I So the 
little girl loves change. And so do all men. 

The farmer hastens from one crop to another, 
and, as soon as he has done sowing, begins 
to look forward to his harvest. The sailor 



254 THE GREAT CHANGE. [Lect. XII. 

Changes to all. The old man. 

on the ocean longs to see the land and enter the 
harbor ; and when he has been on shore a few 
days, he wants to set out on a new voyage. 
The boy wants to be a youth, and the youth 
wants to be a man. God has so planned things, 
that we must have changes all the way through 
life. We are born, and our parents rejoice over 
us. We have sicknesses and health. We change 
our homes, live in different houses, form friend- 
ships, have our friends die and leave us. At 
death, there comes a great change. We change 
worlds and go to another. We change society, 
leaving those whom we know here, for new 
society in eternity. We do not walk, or talk, 
or hear, or see, or feel, as we now do, for we 
go to the world of spirits. We become spirits. 
What a multitude of changes do we see going 
on around us ! Very great changes they are, 
too! 

The old man now bending on his staff, and 



Lect. XII.] THE GKEAT CHANGE. 255 

His sad experience. Xo sunshine. 

shuffling in his walk as if his feet could not be 
lifted from the ground, was once a fresh, bright- 
eyed boy, who could shout and run. But 
he went to school, and grew up, and became a 
man. Then he had a young and beautiful wife, 
then a family of children ; but he has lived to 
see his children die and be put into the grave, 
and he has buried his wife, and sold his home, 
and his friends and acquaintances are almost 
all dead, and he feels alone. He has witnessed 
the moanings of sickness, the wailings over the 
dead, heard the dull clods as they fell on the 
coffin, and heard his steps echo, as he returned 
to his home after the funeral. And he has 
heard the songs of his joyous child, before she 
was cut down by sickness and death. O, it now 
seems to the old man as if the sun was worn 
out, so that he does not shine as he once did, — 
as if the stars were fading away, and as if the 
rain-storm left its clouds behind it! The thin 



256 THE GREAT CHANGE. [Lect. XII. 

The bird's egg. The journey. 



hair on his head is white, and his eyes are dim, 
and his ears are dull, and he has seen many, 
many changes. Does it seem to these little boys 
and girls before me now, so bright and so fair, 
that they will ever pass through changes, so 
many and so great ? O yes ! The little child 
who has sickened and died has met with 
changes greater than any which the oldest man 
meets with in this life. And there is not a 
child present who will not pass through all 
these changes. Does it seem as if the little 
seed which you hold in your hand could be 
changed into a tree? Would you think that 
the little spotted bird's-egg could be changed, 
and become a thing that can fly and sing'? 
Would you think that the poor worm on the 
ground could ever be changed into a beautiful 
butterfly 1 

"We shall all be changed." When a man 
leaves his house to go a long journey, where he 



Lect. XIL] THE GREAT CHANGE. 257 

Departure. The return. 

never was before, and when he knows not when 
he will return, there are two occasions of great 
interest. The first is, when he leaves his home ; 
and the second, when he returns to it. When 
he leaves, how much the family talk about it ! 
He tells them what to do, and how to do. He 
makes his will. He comes to the very morning 
when he is to leave. The family all come to 
the table, but they cannot eat. They try to 
talk cheerfully, but under it all they are sad. 
How the man looks upon the face of his wife, 
and each of the children ! How he walks 
through his house, wondering in his heart if he 
shall ever see these things again ! When he 
goes out to begin his journey, what thoughts are 
stirred within him, as he turns and looks again 
on his home ! Will he ever see it again ? And 
how the family feel lonely and desolate after he 
has gone ! When will they see him again ? 
The other great event is when the man 



258 THE GREAT CHANGE. [Lect. XII. 

Two great changes. What death is. 

returns. The family learn the name of the 
ship in which he is to come. They count the 
days she will be likely to be in coming across 
the ocean. They watch the winds and the 
storms. They prepare the house and get every- 
thing ready to give him a warm welcome. They 
hear that the ship has come into the harbor; 
and now they watch the moment when the cars 
or the carriage will come, bringing back the 
wanderer. And when he reaches home, how 
the children run out and shout to meet their 
father ! They want to take his hand, to touch 
his coat, to hang upon his neck ! His return 
to his home is a great event ! 

Now, my dear children, there are two great 
changes through which every one of you must 
and will pass. I mean when you die, and leave 
that body in which you live, and when you 
return to it at the resurrection day. Dying is 
like leaving your home to go on a long, long 
journey. It is a very sad time. 



Lect. XII.] THE GREAT CHANGE. 259 

Little Emma Clapp. Conversation with her. 

Since I began to write this Lecture, and before 
I could finish it, one of our lambs has been 
gathered into the fold of the Great Shepherd. 
She was thirteen years an inhabitant of this 
world. Some months since the Spirit of God 
touched her heart, and taught her that she 
was a lost sinner. She came to talk with me 
alone about the salvation of the soul. It was 
a time when none of my dear flock seemed to 
want to be led to the Great Shepherd, and I 
was surprised to see her. A few minutes con- 
vinced me, as I talked with her, that she had 
been taught by the Holy Spirit. She wanted 
peace of mind, deliverance from sin, and a friend 
to stand by her for ever. 

" Emma, have you learnt that you are a sin- 
ner ? " 

" Yes, sir ; I feel it, and more and more every 
day." 

" Have you asked for mercy yourself? " 



260 THE GREAT CHANGE. [Lect. XII. 

Emma's experience. 

" Yes, sir, every day." 

" How long have you been in the habit of 
daily prayer ? " 

" I have always said my prayers, but I do 
not think I have really prayed till about two 
months ago." 

" I do not ask you what it is, — but do you 
know what your easily besetting sin is, — I mean, 
the sin that gives you the most trouble % ' 

" I think I do, sir ; and I try to pray against 
it, and to kill it ! It is my temper, sir ! But I 
think I have done something to overcome it." 

" You tell me, Emma, that you want to make 
a profession of religion. Why do you % " 

" Because, sir, Christ has told us to ; and 
because I want to be among his people ; and 
because I may die early, and I want to do my 
duty, as fully as I can." 

The Saviour was set before her as our right- 
eousness, and her faith and love took hold of 
him with a strong grasp. 



Lect. XII.J THE GREAT CHANGE. 261 

The baptism. Her sick-room. 

On the next occasion of celebrating the Lord's 
Supper, little Emma came out in the aisle of 
the great church, and before the great congre- 
gation, and stood up to be received into the 
church. Her father was dead, and her mother 
was away, and so alone, of all her family, she 
came. She was small in size, pale as a lily, 
and when, in her simple white dress, she came 
to me to have the water of baptism sprinkled 
upon her, I could not but say, as I baptized 
her, " Little one, God is able to make thee 
stand ! ' She was the youngest in the church, 
and probably the youngest that ever joined this 
church, — a little one ! She was then in good 
health. But in a few months, on my return 
home, I heard that Emma was very sick. I 
hastened to her bedside, and found her very 
dangerously sick. The frail body seemed to 
thrill with pain, and the waves rolled deep over 
her. But her spirit, like some white marble 



262 THE GREAT CHANGE. [Lect. XII. 



Her anxieties. Fearless. 

on which the finger of God had been writing, 
came out clear and distinct, and showed the 
writing between the rolling waves. Her mind 
was clear and bright as a summer's morning, 
and her voice like a silver bell, as she called 
her friends around her dying bed, and calmly 
bade each one farewell, sending a particular 
message to every little schoolmate and friend 
who was absent, exhorting her loved ones to 
come to her Saviour, assuring them that it 
was easy. When asked by her pastor what he 
should pray for, she replied, that Christ would 
take her to himself! She spoke of going home, 
and being almost home; and upon her beau- 
tiful brow and meek face peace and hope poured 
their oil of gladness. You could almost hear 
the wings of the angel who came for his charge. 
Death had no sting, the grave no victory. Not 
a cloud hung over her, nor the shadow of a 
doubt disturbed her. I have seen strong men 



Lect. XIL] THE GREAT CHANGE. 263 



Perfected praises. Farewells. 



die, and aged Christians go home, but never 
before saw a child die an hundred years old ! 
I have heard the great ocean lift up his voice 
and speak of God, and I have heard his power 
proclaimed in the thunders as they rolled among 
the mighty Alps, but I never before heard his 
praises so perfected out of the mouth of the 
babe. 

The physician was very anxious, and the fam- 
ily were in great distress, and the watchers 
walked softly around her bed; but she was calm, 
and clear in mind, and unalarmed. She was 
willing to leave everything concerning herself 
with her Saviour. But the next night she was 
much worse. They told her they feared she was 
dying ! Then she asked to see each one of her 
friends separately, that she might bid farewell 
to each. She threw her arms around the neck 
of her mother and sisters, and begged them to 
come to Christ and to love her Saviour. To 



264 THE GREAT CHANGE. [Lect. XII. 

Her messages. Shutting of the lily. 

each one she had a special charge to give, and 
to each little girl in her Sabbath-school class 
she sent a special message. Calm, and gentle, 
with the mind bright, she talked of her hopes, 
her faith, her love, and of her approaching 
death, as if it were a pleasant journey she was 
about to take. The physician, who had seen 
many die, old and young and middle-aged, and 
who had read of the happy deaths of children, 
said he had never seen or read of anything 
like this ! She told her sister and intimate 
friends how easy it seemed to her to love the 
Saviour, and, stretching out her little hand, bade 
them a most affectionate farewell. She died 
gently as a rose-bud would fall from its stem, 
or as the lily would fold up its leaves at sun- 
setting, and go to sleep for the night ! In 
less time than I can describe it to you, she 
was changed. The bright eye was closed; the 
sweet voice was silent; the ear heard not; the 



Lect. XIL] THE GREAT CHANGE. 265 

Great change in Emma. What became of her ? 

hands, white as the sheet, lay still on her 
breast; the sighing was over, and the heart 
did not beat. She was dead ! What a change ! 
Now the body had no soul in it ! It lay like a 
body of alabaster. The widowed mother and 
friends stood weeping around it. But where 
was she ? Where had Emma herself gone % 
That cold body was not Emma, — any more 
than the picture shut up in a case is the person, 
or any more than the case is the jew r el which 
is in it. We trust she had gone to heaven, — 
where she w r ould see her Saviour, — where she 
would see the bright angels, and the glorious 
spirits of just men made perfect, — and where 
she would meet with an uncounted number of 
children, who were suffered to come unto Christ, 
for of such is the kingdom of heaven ! What 
a change ! Here, she was in a poor, frail body, 
full of disease and pain ; there, she is free 
from all pain and sickness. Here, she was 

17 



266 THE GREAT CHANGE. [Lect. XII. 

Contrasts. The coffin-dress. 

listening to the sobs and the groans of her 
weeping friends ; there, she is surrounded by 
happy ones who are singing the songs of 
heaven. Here, she saw her minister at her 
bedside pointing her to Christ ; there, she sees 
Christ himself, in his smiles and in his glo- 
ry. Here, she heard prayer and supplications; 
there, she hears praise and thanksgiving and 
songs of joy. Here, she saw tears and weeping; 
there, God wipes away all tears from all eyes. 
Here, she felt sick even unto death; there, she 
shall no more say, " I am sick." Here the 
frail lily felt the cold storms and the chilling 
winds ; there, it is placed in the garden where 
no storms or winds come. What a change ! 

But there will be a greater change still, when 
her spirit will one day come back to that grave, 
and live in that body again ! When she lay in 
the coffin, so fair and so beautiful, dressed in 
the same clothes in which she was baptized, 



Lect. XII.] THE GREAT CHANGE. 267 

The last change. Christ's coming. 

she looked like some fair creature asleep. 
Those looks will change, that dress will de- 
cay and be gone, and the very coffin in which 
she sleeps, and the great stone tomb in which 
she was laid, will wear away and be gone, 
and forgotten — by men ! But she will not 
be forgotten by Christ. He knows where 
each one of his friends is buried, and he hath 
appointed a day in the which he will send an 
angel before him, as a king sometimes sends a 
herald before him, to call the people together 
to whom he will speak. Christ is now in heav- 
en, making dwellings and homes for his friends ; 
but at the end of all things he will come back 
to earth. He will come in the clouds of heaven, 
with all the holy angels with him. The re- 
deemed spirits of heaven will come with him. 
What a light will fill the heavens, as he sits 
down on " the great white throne " ! One of 
the angels will descend to earth with a shout ! 



268 THE GREAT CHANGE. [Lect. XIL 

The trumpet's voice. Graves opened. 

He is the archangel ! He is going to do the 
greatest work ever done on earth by any created 
being. He is now to sound the trumpet, and 
awake the dead ! With one blast of the trum- 
pet, he makes the voice reach every grave ! In 
an instant, even in the twinkling of an eye, 
every dead man and woman and child hears his 
voice ! The ground heaves, the graves that 
had been forgotten for thousands of years are 
opened ! Out of the deep, deep sea they come, 
— from every hill-side, from every valley, from 
every cavern and lonely place, from buried cities 
and forgotten places, they start out to life ! 
" "We shall all be changed." The good and the 
bad, the old and the young, the great and the 
small, will all be changed. The man who was 
murdered, and concealed so that his grave was 
never found, will then come back to life. The 
grave in which God buried Moses will then be 
found, though no man knows where it is to this 
day! 



Lect. XII.] THE GREAT CHANGE. 269 

How the wicked forgotten in death. 

And now, dear children, how many are there 
present to-day who have lived more than thir- 
teen years'? And you see that every one of 
you might have been, even at that early age, 
a Christian ! Who of you would be thus pre- 
pared to die, should you be thus cut down be- 
fore another Sabbath % When one dies who 
gives no evidence of being a Christian, we bury 
him, and say nothing about him. We don't 
mention his name. We don't want to think of 
him ! But when even a little child dies, leav- 
ing such evidence that she belonged to Christ, 
how we love to speak of her, to think of her, 
to recall her words and looks ! Her very tomb 
is beautiful. A silver light seems to rise up 
from it. Long, long will the name of this 
child linger among us, and her life and her 
death will teach every child that he can and 
ought to be a Christian ; and it will teach 
every one in this whole congregation, that he 



270 THE GREAT CHANGE. [Lect. XII. 

The most precious thing on earth. 

has no excuse and no apology for not being 
a Christian ! If the little child can embrace 
Christ, so can all these children, so can all 
these hearts ! O, tell me, is there anything 
on earth which you would not give to be able 
to die such a death ] Is there anything, even 
the whole earth, for which w^e would bring 
her back from her Saviour, and make her lose 
her crown % O no r " The child shall die an 
hundred years old, but the sinner being an 
hundred years old shall die accursed." 

To the friends of Jesus Christ this will be 
a blessed change, — greater than the man feels 
who has been a long time away from his home 
and returns, — greater than the sick man feels, 
when he gets off the bed of pain, and can ride 
out and see the beautiful fields. The old, feeble 
man will be changed, — so that he shall now 
have a new r body, young, active, and strong. 
The little child, crushed by sickness and death, 



Lect. XII.] THE GEEAT CHANGE. 271 

The blind eyes opened. Xo sickness. 

will be changed, — so that she will never again 
say, " I am sick." That poor, helpless one who 
could not walk a step, and who for long, long 
years never saw a clay of health, shall be 
changed, and he will leap like a hart and shout 
for joy. That little blind child, who never saw 
his mother's face, or the bright flowers of the 
garden, or the smiles of his father, or the 
forms of his little brothers and sisters, will be 
changed, and will see all that is lovely and 
beautiful in God's new creation ; and that little 
mute one, who never heard the voice of love, 
nor the sweet sounds of music, nor the words 
of human lips, will be changed, and will hear 
the songs of angels and the songs of saints 
in heaven, even for ever ! There will be no sick 
or feeble ones then. They will not need crutch- 
es to help them to walk. They will not have 
sick-rooms or sick-beds there ! 

Sometimes here we see great changes take 



272 THE GEEAT CHANGE. [Lect. XII. 

Surgeon's knife. The pond-lily. The diamond. 

place in wonderful ways. From the knife and 
the saw of the surgeon come health and joy. 
From the vials and drugs in the apothecary's 
shop, come renewed health and strength to the 
sick man. Who would think that, from the 
dark, cold grave, God could raise up new bodies, 
bright as angels and beautiful as rainbows 1 In 
the bottom of the pond, far down in the deep 
mud, is buried a small root. Who would think 
that, from that dark, disagreeble place, God 
could make the lily grow, till it rests on the top 
of the waters, and, unfolding its white leaves, 
looks up into the bright heavens, — one of 
the purest, whitest, sweetest things that ever 
grew ? Who would think that the dark-brown 
pebble which the tawny Indian child picks up 
at the foot of the great mountain in India, 
could be polished so as to be a diamond, — to 
be set in the crown of a king, and to be kept as 
a thing of great value, from age to age ? 



Lect. XII.] THE GREAT CHANGE. 273 

Stephen's burial. The eggs of the silk-worm and the staves. 

They laid Christ's body, torn by the crown of 
thorns, pierced by the nails and the spear, all 
bloody and cold and dead, in the tomb ; but he 
was changed, and how glorious was he when 
he showed himself to Saul of Tarsus, and to 
John, his beloved disciple, on the isle of Patmos ! 
They laid Stephen's body, all bruised and man- 
gled with stones, in the grave ; but he will be 
changed, and will come from that grave in 
brightness and glory. They buried John the 
Baptist with his head cut off by the wicked, but 
he will come from that grave with a crown of 
life on his head ! 

Some men went to China once, and, because 
they were forbidden to carry the silk- worm out 
of the country, they hid some of the little crea- 
ture's eggs in the top of their staves; and so 
out of those two dry staves came all the silk- 
worms and all the silk in Europe since ! "What 
a wonder ! A poor rag-picker takes a short 



274 THE GEEAT CHANGE. [Lect. XII. 



The rag-picker. Eternal change. 

stick in his hand, and goes into the dirty gutters 
of the streets of the city, and picks up little 
bits of rags and of paper. These he puts into 
his dirty bag. But these are washed and made 
over, and come out the pure, white sheet of 
paper, beautiful enough to have a queen write 
on it ! Who can doubt that God can take these 
poor bodies, and out of them raise up a new and 
better body % Out of the very darkness and the 
bones of the grave, he can make something that 
will be brighter than the sun for ever ! 

These children now before me, so young and 
so fair, must be changed. They must be 
changed by time, as it makes them older; by 
sickness, as it withers them, as the worm with- 
ers the flower ; by death, which will turn them 
into corpses ; and by Christ, when he comes 
to waken all the dead ! O child ! if you love 
that Saviour, if you please him, by shunning 
what he forbids and doing what he commands. 



Lect. XII.] THE GREAT CHANGE. 275 

Eternal change. 

if you live to please and honor him, you shall 
be changed, and become like the blessed Saviour 
for ever, — holy, glorious, immortal and blessed 
for ever ! 



THE END. 



